On Saturday, 17 October 2026, masked Israeli settlers attacked a European delegation near Taybeh, in the occupied West Bank, during the olive harvest. The Guardian reported from the scene. Bernard Baudoux, 78, the French mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries, was struck and knocked to the ground as he tried to get into a car with diplomatic plates. A Belgian mission car had a window smashed.

In the party, according to Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prévot, were Belgium’s consul general, French and Polish diplomats and Catholic representatives. The Guardian writes that the archbishop of Cambrai, Vincent Dollmann, and France’s consul general in Jerusalem were also there. Baudoux was in Taybeh, a Christian town, for a twinning agreement. A witness said the attacker shouted “Vive la France” before striking him. Those are accounts, not a verdict: Israeli police have opened an investigation.

Prévot condemned the violence and said Belgium would keep pressing for EU sanctions on those responsible. French minister Jean-Noël Barrot called on Israel to arrest the “extremist settlers” who assaulted Baudoux. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned “severe acts of violence by Israeli rioters” and, in the same breath, faulted the consulates for not coordinating the visit with the army. Benjamin Netanyahu’s office spoke on X of “alleged” facts, even though filmed images exist.

Residents of Taybeh were picking on the lower slopes when the group came, the Guardian says, to stop the harvest. A Palestinian woman in her seventies was beaten; a man needed six stitches to the head. Parish priest Bashar Fawadleh said foreign diplomats no longer serve as a shield. This report is about the attack on the delegation, not a rerun of Friday’s harvest violence, already covered separately.

The inquiry is open. Nobody is named here as the author of the blows.

This article is not a travel guide for the West Bank and does not stand in for a criminal investigation.

Image: Abraham Sobkowski OFM, Taybeh, West Bank, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; the Christian town of the incident, archive, not the 17 October 2026 attack.

Sources consulted: Israeli settlers attack European diplomats in West Bank - The Guardian; West Bank: Israeli settlers attack EU diplomats - Deutsche Welle.