NBC News Correspondent Matt Bradley Details Violent Attack by Masked Israeli Settlers in the West Bank
NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley has described in graphic detail the moment he and his crew were ambushed by masked Israeli settlers while reporting in the occupied West Bank, an attack that left members of his team injured and underscored the escalating violence facing journalists in the region.
Bradley and his crew were interviewing 51-year-old Palestinian resident Aida Ahmed Abdullah in the village of Jalud, near Nablus. Abdullah had just recounted how Israeli settlers forced her family from their home when a gray car with Israeli license plates pulled up. Suddenly, at least four masked men identified as settlers emerged from the vehicle and launched a brutal assault.
“They jumped out, beat us, then jumped back in the car,” Bradley said in the network’s report. The entire attack was captured on the crew’s camera, which recorded one of the masked men swinging a stick at the camera operator before the equipment crashed to the ground.
The attackers also smashed the windshield of the crew’s vehicle and knocked Abdullah unconscious, according to Bradley. “They smashed our car windshield, hit our crew with clubs and beat Aida unconscious,” he said. “We were able to get her to an ambulance, and our team was treated for minor injuries.”
NBC News producer Lawahez Jabari, who was part of the reporting team, said she saw one of the attackers carrying a firearm. “Suddenly a car came to us. The settlers had sticks,” she recalled. “I saw a gun, but they didn’t use the gun.”
Khaldoon Eid, the camera operator who lives in the West Bank, said the team did not anticipate violence while reporting from a Palestinian area. “We didn’t expect that — that they would come to attack,” he said. “We were in the middle of a Palestinian area next to Palestinian houses.”
Bradley was struck twice in the arm and was treated at a nearby clinic. Jabari, Eid, and another crew member also sustained injuries and received medical treatment.
The attack comes amid a sharp rise in settler-related violence across the West Bank, where international human rights groups and the United Nations have repeatedly documented attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities. These incidents have intensified in recent years, drawing broad international concern and occasional condemnation from Israeli officials.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement condemning the violence in Jalud and the nearby village of Qusra, blaming a “handful of rioters.” “I strongly condemn the criminal acts of violence committed in the villages of Qusra and Jalud,” he said. Yet local Palestinian leaders and journalists note that such incidents often go unpunished, fueling fears among Palestinian families who say the military and police frequently fail to intervene when settlers attack.
NBC News referred TheWrap to its digital report and declined to provide additional comment.