Wars in the Middle East: latest news. American photographer attacked by settlers in the West Bank: ‘I thought I was going to die’. Rubio: ‘The US is deeply shocked by the attack’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has arrived in Manama to take part in the ninth strategic dialogue between Russia and the Gulf Cooperation Council. This was reported by the Russian state news agency TASS. Bahrain will be the first stop on the Russian diplomat’s tour of the Middle East. Lavrov is then expected to travel to Tehran for consultations with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that Lavrov is expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the Russia–GCC dialogue.

The United States is “deeply disturbed” by the images of the attack on the American photojournalist Heidi Levine in the West Bank. This was stated by Foreign Minister Marco Rubio, who urged Israel to “crack down” on violence in the region. “We are deeply disturbed by those images and by what we are seeing,” he said, after Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine was attacked whilst documenting the Palestinians’ annual olive harvest, which has been repeatedly disrupted by Israeli settlers.

“I didn’t think I’d get out of there alive”, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s account of events is “an outright lie and the greatest insult”. This was stated on Israeli television channel Channel 12 by Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, who was attacked by settlers in the West Bank. “When we arrived at the scene, we began to notice some men – Jewish settlers – in the valley in front of us,” Levine recounted.

“Suddenly, a group of men – at least twenty of them – lunged at me. Fortunately, I was wearing a high-visibility vest and a helmet. They threw me to the ground and started kicking me and hitting me with sticks. Two doctors and a nurse who examined me suspect I may even have been stabbed in the buttocks, possibly with a knife. Other colleagues told me they’d seen settlers tying nails to their sticks. I told them I was a journalist. My protective gear was marked ‘Press’. I had two cameras with me. They ripped them from my shoulders and broke the straps. At one point they helped me to my feet, but not to help me. They did it so they could continue to rob me. In the end, they took two of my bags and the camera case I was wearing.” Commenting on Netanyahu’s claims that young Israelis had helped her to her feet, Levine stated: “That is a complete and utter lie and a most serious insult. He has all the photographic evidence. The only time I saw anyone throwing stones was when two of my colleagues tried to help me escape, and then the Palestinians tried to drive the settlers away from me and started throwing stones in their direction so that my colleagues could run ahead and save me. If they hadn’t done that, I would probably have died. I didn’t think I’d survive. I have been covering wars and conflicts in this region for more than forty years. I have worked in Syria; I have worked in Ukraine. No. Yesterday, I didn’t think I would get out of there alive. So, Prime Minister, perhaps you should watch these videos again and you will see that nobody tried to help me, except my colleagues.”