Israel–Palestine–Lebanon

Quds News relays AFP's account of settlers assaulting two journalists and robbing camera gear in Aqraba, West Bank

This version is a correction.

ATTACK
Location
Aqraba, West Bank
Actors
Israel · Palestine
Importance
Standard

Quds News Network relayed at 00:49 UTC on 7 October 2026 an Agence France-Presse account of an incident that happened on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, in which armed Israeli settler groups fired at and attacked two AFP journalists in the West Bank village of Aqraba, where they were reporting on settler violence against Palestinian olive farmers. AFP said photographers Jaafar Ashtiyeh and John Wessels were assaulted within 500 metres of Israeli occupation forces who did not intervene, that settlers opened fire, stole Ashtiyeh's camera gear and beat him with rifle butts inside a car marked Press, and that Wessels was held at gunpoint. It added that a Palestinian man was shot in the foot, that Ashtiyeh, 58, was hospitalised in Nablus with severe bruising, that AFP demanded a full investigation, and that the Foreign Press Association condemned the incident as an attempt to intimidate the press.

Relayed by one account from an Agence France-Presse report.

Verification: unverified

Evidence: Quds News relays AFP's account of settler violence against AFP journalists in Aqraba

Single account, Quds News Network, relaying an Agence France-Presse report of an incident that happened on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, and published in the window covered by this event. AFP's own account was not read directly. No Israeli account was available to this report. No image or video from the post is included because the original files were not retrieved.