An Israeli soldier fires a tear gas grenade toward Palestinian olive pickers during the olive harvest on October 17, 2026 in Abu Falah, West Bank [Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Getty Images] By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP and AP Published On 17 Oct 202617 Oct 2026 Israeli settlers have attacked European diplomats, including a French mayor, near the Palestinian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank.
The delegation was visiting Palestinian olive harvesters on Saturday when the Israeli attackers confronted the group.
The attack comes a day after settlers assaulted an American journalist north of Ramallah.
In Saturday’s incident, the settlers targeted Belgium’s consul general, French and Polish diplomats and Catholic representatives, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said.
“A French mayor was assaulted and a Belgian vehicle damaged,” Prevot said, linking the attack to what he called Israel’s “illegal settlement policy” and pledged to push for further European Union sanctions.
French mayor Bernard Baudoux, who was assaulted, told the AFP news agency that the violence suggests that “there is a tolerance on the part of the Israeli government” towards settler violence.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said the settlers surrounded the diplomats’ vehicles, pelted them with stones and smashed their windows.
Taybeh’s mayor told Al Jazeera the settlers blocked the diplomats’ vehicles, assaulted members of the group and shattered a window.
The assault has prompted an Israeli police investigation and condemnation from Belgium as settler attacks disrupt the harvest across the occupied territory.
Settler attacks continue Earlier on Saturday, several Palestinians were injured by Israeli settlers, as Israeli forces arrested farmers during pogroms across the occupied West Bank.
Advertisement Four women and a child were among six people injured when Israeli settlers attacked residents in Ma’in village in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).
In the town of Deir Ammar, west of Ramallah, Israeli forces opened fire on farmers picking olives, forcing them to leave their land, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
In the same area, Israeli settlers shot and injured two Palestinians.
In the village of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, Israeli forces fired on a Palestinian civilian vehicle.
In the village of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah, settlers raided a farm at dawn and killed about 20 sheep, Mayor Najeh Rustum told Al Jazeera.
He added that Israeli forces had raided the village the previous night as well, firing tear gas canisters that ignited a fire in a house and caused material damage.
‘Part of a campaign’ Al Jazeera’s Odeh said settlers destroyed olive trees across the Beit Furik plain, east of Nablus, in the northern West Bank while Israeli forces arrested landowners and olive pickers.
In the village of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, she said, settlers under army protection fired live ammunition at farmers in the al-Hariq area to prevent them from completing the harvest and forced them off their land.
Settlers also smashed the vehicle of international activist Jonathan Budlak in the village and threw stones at a farmer’s vehicle.
In the village of Burqa near Ramallah, Israeli forces and settlers prevented farmers from picking olives, Odeh said, adding that settlers attacked farmers in the Wadi al-Sha’er area, southeast of Salfit.
“What we see, whether it’s in Beit Furik, Kafr Malek, Deir Jarir or elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, is part of a campaign,” Odeh said.
She said settlers have become increasingly emboldened, publicly advertising attack campaigns on social media platforms.
“There have been 300 documented attacks since the beginning of October, and that has had a devastating impact on a very important season for Palestinian farmers,” she said, adding that danger comes from soldiers and settlers alike as military forces routinely intervene to protect settlers and attack Palestinians defending their land.
A settler throws a stone towards Palestinians in Abu Falah near Ramallah on October 16, 2026, during attacks carried out as Palestinians try to harvest olives [Ammar Awad/Reuters] Prominent rabbi justifies attacks The attacks follow a religious edict issued by Rabbi Dov Lior, a prominent rabbi for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and a leading authority among the Hilltop Youth, which is a religious Zionist group devoted to seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank.
Advertisement In the edict, Lior stated that harvesting olives in the Holy Land is entirely permitted and carries an added virtue, given security dangers.
He wrote that Jews are permitted to harvest olives even in areas far from Jewish communities to publicly display ownership of the land and fulfil God’s commandment of conquering it.
He claimed the land belongs to the Jewish people and Palestinians did not buy or rent it.
Odeh said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplays pogroms and no concrete action is taken to stop them.
“It is a matter of debate among politicians, but no one is stopping these settlers, whose names, locations and homes are known,” she said, adding that politicians permit the violence to continue because “it is politically expedient” and secures votes before elections on October 27.
