An NBC News crew and the Palestinian woman they were interviewing were attacked by masked Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank over the weekend, correspondent Matt Bradley said after footage of the assault aired Sunday on Today with Willie Geist.
The attack happened Saturday in Jalud, near Nablus, while Bradley was interviewing Aida Ahmed Abdullah, 51, who said settlers had driven her family from their home.
A gray car with Israeli plates pulled up, and at least four masked men got out and beat Abdullah and the journalists with rocks and sticks. “They jumped out, beat us, then jumped back in the car,” Bradley said.
On Today, he added that the attackers smashed the NBC windshield, struck the crew with clubs and beat Abdullah unconscious. Abdullah was taken to a hospital and later released. Bradley was hit twice on the arm and treated at a local clinic, as were producer Lawahez Jabari and camera operator Khaldoon Eid, who suffered minor injuries.
Jabari said the men had sticks and that she saw a gun that was not used. Eid, a West Bank resident, said the crew did not expect an attack next to Palestinian homes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned “criminal acts of violence” in Jalud and nearby Qusra by what he called a “handful of rioters,” saying the attacks harmed Israel’s standing and asking security forces to apprehend those responsible. No arrests in the NBC case were immediately reported.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has separately condemned recent settler attacks on Palestinian families in the West Bank as the work of “Israeli terrorists.”