Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has downplayed accounts of recent extremist attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank amid the annual olive harvest.

© Faiz Abu Rmeleh/Getty Images

Mike Huckabee calls for arrest and prosecution of those responsible as Heidi Levine, 63, recovers in hospital in Israel

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has denounced the settler attack that left the Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine badly beaten and needing surgery as a “despicable act of terror” and called for the arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

Levine, 63, an award-winning journalist who lives in Israel, was set upon last Friday by masked Israeli settlers who used clubs and other weapons to attack Palestinian people attempting to harvest their olives in occupied West Bank towns.

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© Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

© Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

© Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

The president praised the embattled prime minister for his endurance, saying any other candidate would be the “wrong Leader.”

© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times