What To Know
- NBC News correspondent Matt Bradley, his crew, and their Palestinian interviewee Aida Ahmed Abdullah were attacked by masked Israeli settlers while filming in the West Bank.
- The attack, which was captured on camera and aired on NBC, involved settlers smashing the crew’s car windshield and beating the victims with clubs and rocks.
- Bradley and his team speak out about the attack.
NBC News correspondent Matt Bradley and his team, along with the Palestinian woman they were interviewing, were attacked on-camera by Israeli settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Friday, August 28, leaving the interviewee unconscious. Now, Bradley is speaking out about the attack, footage of which was aired on Sunday Today With Willie Geist on August 30 (see above).
Bradley was interviewing Aida Ahmed Abdullah and her family in the West Bank city of Jalud, near Nablus. Abdullah told Bradley that Israeli settlers invaded and occupied her home. Abdullah took Bradley to the house, where they remained outside. It was there that a gray car with Israeli license plates containing a group of at least four masked men pulled up attacked Abdullah, Bradley, and the crew with rocks and planks.
Bradley, who sustained minor injuries on his arm during the event, told NBC News, “They jumped out, beat us, then jumped back in the car.” He added on a Today show report, “They smashed our car windshield, hit our crew with clubs, and beat Aida unconscious.”
In the footage above, the Israeli men are seen smashing the NBC car’s windshield, and Bradley is seen at Abdullah’s side after she was knocked unconscious. Bradley filmed on his phone as he checked on Abdullah, while the crew filmed nearby. According to NBC News, Abdullah was transported to a nearby hospital for treatment and is now in recovery after having left the hospital.
Bradley said he was hit twice on his arm and treated at a local clinic, along with his cameraman and producer, who each had minor injuries.
“Suddenly a car came to us,” Bradley’s producer, Lawahez Jabari, told NBC News of the attack. “The settlers had sticks. I saw a gun, but they didn’t use the gun.”
Camera operator Khaldoon Eid, a West Bank resident, said, “We didn’t expect that — that they would come to attack. We were in the middle of a Palestinian area next to Palestinian houses.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on August 29 that he condemned the attack for damaging Israel’s global standing. No arrests have been made. United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Hukabee has condemned attacks on Palestinian families by Israeli settlers in the West Bank in the last month, calling them acts of “Israeli terrorists.”