Dana Bash presses Netanyahu on ongoing settler violence in West Bank
(CNN) — Four settlers were arrested after an attack on CNN and other journalists in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, according to Israeli Police.
The journalists were near the village of Sinjil north of Ramallah to cover the one-year anniversary of the killing of Saif Musallet last July, a Palestinian-American who was beaten to death by Jewish settlers.
Within minutes of arriving at the location where Musallet was killed, Israeli settlers descended on the area. As the CNN team and other journalists tried to leave, a group of four settlers blocked the road with their car and tried to keep the vehicles from moving forward.
The four settlers were wielding wooden and metal rods and stones. One settler brandished a knife and tried to puncture the tires of CNN’s vehicle.
The settlers then began to jump on the vehicle behind CNN’s — carrying another group of journalists — and smashed the windshield of that vehicle. Another group of settlers tried to block a separate exit route before chasing the journalists towards the town of Sinjil.
When police officers and Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene, police say they arrested four suspects before locating their vehicle nearby. They seized clubs and a knife from inside the vehicle, police said.
“The Israel Police and the (Israel Defense Forces) view any manifestation of violence or causing damage to property very seriously, especially when it concerns media personnel performing their work,” police said in a statement.
After the killing of Musallet in July 2025, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called it a “criminal and terrorist act,” calling on authorities to investigate. But Musallet’s father told CNN no one has been arrested since the killing.
This attack on journalists comes just days after US Rep. Ro Khanna was detained by settlers near the village of Turmus Ayya in the West Bank. The village has a population of thousands of Palestinian-Americans who have come under repeated attack by settlers in the area.
Khanna visited the village to show solidarity with American citizens who have told CNN they feel forgotten by their government.
“I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding, having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned,” Khanna told Reuters.
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the issue of settler violence has “blown up beyond belief.” He described the perpetrators as a group of 150 “juvenile delinquents.” He said the police and military “take actions,” but the courts in Israel “are very lenient” against those convicted of settler violence.
Despite Netanyahu’s statements, the West Bank has seen a surge of settler violence – some with instances of Israeli soldiers standing idly by – in conjunction with the Israeli government rapidly expanding settlements throughout the territory.
The-CNN-Wire
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