Oren Ziv & Ariel Caine
+972 Magazine / July 28, 2026
An analysis of four clips capturing different angles of the shooting incident in the West Bank village of Tel calls into question Israel’s version of events.
On Friday morning, a group of Jewish settlers from the Jewish settlement of Havad Gilad entered the nearby Palestinian village of Tel, close to Nablus. After Palestinian residents came out to repel the settlers, several of whom were armed, a scuffle ensued. One of the Palestinians snatched a settler’s weapon and opened fire. Israeli soldiers who were already present at the scene also fired their weapons, along with several additional settlers.
By the end, two Israelis — one soldier and one settler — and four Palestinians lay dead.
Senior Israeli political and military officials were quick to label the incident as a Palestinian terror attack on Israelis who had merely gone “hiking” — despite the fact that armed settlers had trespassed inside a Palestinian village, consistent with a common strategy of “initiating friction,” and the Palestinian who opened fire did so with a settler’s weapon that he had seized on-site.
Shortly afterward, the Israeli army released a statement saying that “the terrorist was neutralized immediately after carrying out the attack.” Sheikh Farouk Ramadan, the Palestinian resident who had seized the settler’s weapon, was indeed shot dead soon after opening fire. But an analysis of video footage from the scene shows that he was shot while unarmed, after walking slowly toward the soldiers and then dropping to the ground several meters in front of them — possibly by a settler.
As Haaretz reported in the aftermath of the incident, Israeli military sources acknowledged that all those killed or wounded had been shot by Israeli weapons, and the army was investigating whether some of the individuals were “hit by crossfire.” On Sunday evening, Channel 11 reported that the military believed that Yuval Ezra, the soldier who died, “was killed by friendly fire.”
+972 Magazine analysed four videos from the scene that have circulated online, filmed by both Israelis and Palestinians who were present. The analysis calls into question Israel’s official version of events. (The videos are reproduced here in accordance with Section 27A of Israel’s Copyright Law.)
The first video documents the initial moments of the escalation. Since the person filming is standing behind the soldiers, it can be inferred that it was filmed by one of the settlers. The second video, apparently filmed by a Palestinian, is a screen recording from a cell phone, lacking the original audio and partially in slow motion. Nevertheless, it can be synchronized with the first video.
At the beginning of the first video, a settler in a black shirt strikes Ramadan with his rifle — the same one that Ramadan will later snatch. Fifteen seconds in, three gunshots can be heard, fired out of frame, either by settlers or soldiers. At the 22-second mark, young settlers can be heard shouting in Hebrew, “Revenge!”
The struggle over the weapon begins 27 seconds in, during a confrontation between a Palestinian man in a black shirt and jeans and the settler in a black shirt. At the 29-second mark, a settler in a white shirt — who is also armed — joins in, and Ramadan also enters the scene, possibly attempting to defuse the situation. The Palestinian man in black grabs the strap of the rifle held by the settler in black.
At the 31-second mark, Ramadan begins struggling with the settler over the weapon. The other Palestinian man has let go of the strap and is now behind Ramadan. At 32 seconds, before Ramadan gains control of the weapon, four gunshots are heard and the Palestinian man in the black shirt falls.
At this point in the second video, a cloud of smoke is visible, apparently caused by a shot fired from the rifle of the settler in white. At 34 seconds in the first video, two additional shots are heard that sound different, likely coming from the soldier in the center of the frame, and a muzzle flash is visible. At the 40-second mark, one of the young men is heard shouting in Hebrew, “An Arab is wounded,” presumably referring to the young man in black.
At the 42-second mark in the first video, Ramadan emerges with a rifle and aims it at the settler in white who is on the floor in front of him. At the same time, in the second video, Ramadan fires at least one bullet — possibly in the direction of that settler, or toward a soldier standing outside the frame. The settler in black (who had already had his rifle snatched) begins to draw a handgun from his waist; Ramadan turns toward him, and the two aim their weapons at each other.
At the 19-second mark of the second video, Ramadan fires at the settler in black. It is unclear whether or not the bullet hits the settler.
While these videos end there, what happened next can be deduced from footage captured in two additional videos filmed toward the end of the incident.
The third video was filmed by a Palestinian from a high vantage point somewhere within the village of Tel, facing Route 60. It apparently begins shortly after the end of the other two videos.
Ramadan can be seen in the center of the frame, visible thanks to his white hat. On the right-hand side, a settler in black and a Palestinian in a light shirt are wrestling on the ground, and another armed settler in a white shirt is visible to Ramadan’s left. At the 5-second mark, on the left side of the frame, a soldier can be seen firing several shots toward Ramadan and the others. Due to the poor quality of the video, it is difficult to determine who was hit.
A second later, a spray of dirt can be seen on the ground between Ramadan and the settler in white, consistent with a bullet impact coming from the direction of the soldier. As the soldier keeps shooting, three more bullet impacts are visible near Ramadan as he lies on the ground, eight seconds in. It is unclear whether he was hit. It is also possible that, in addition to the soldier, the settler in white is firing a handgun.
At the 12-second mark, the settler in black who has been wrestling on the ground with a Palestinian man gets up and walks toward the soldiers. At the end of the video, 48 seconds in, after several more shots have been fired, Ramadan appears to start getting up onto his knees.
A fourth video, circulated by settlers and journalists, was apparently filmed shortly after the third video. The person filming was evidently a settler — likely one of the participants in the “hiking trip” — because someone who is presumably a soldier can be heard assertively ordering him in Hebrew to step back. The video was amplified online by right wingers to protest the length of time it took the army to kill Ramadan, and the fact that he seemed to be walking around freely after having seized the weapon.
In the video, Ramadan is seen getting up and starting to walk — slowly and unarmed — toward the soldiers stationed on a dirt path at the bottom of the hill. At the 4-second mark, the person filming or someone next to him shouts, “Shoot them already, kill them — do you want us to die?”
At the 14-second mark, it is clear that Ramadan is not holding a weapon in his right hand; a second later, it is evident that he is not holding a weapon in his left hand either.
We also know Ramadan was not armed at this point because the army had to search the area after the incident before finding the weapon. In another short video filmed after the incident, a settler urges the army to bring in D-9 bulldozers to raze the entire village so that the Palestinians “will hand over the weapon,” implying that they knew the weapon was missing rather than with Ramadan.
At the 29-second mark in the fourth video, Ramadan is seen crouching down on the ground. No shots can be heard at this point.
At the 42-second mark, someone off-camera shouts, “What are you waiting for? Shoot them already.” Five seconds later, a single gunshot can be heard. At the 50-second mark, a settler behind the camera says to someone next to him, “They’re shooting because I’m shouting,” before again yelling out “Shoot at anyone who comes close!”
At the 53-second mark, the wounded settler in black (seen struggling with a Palestinian on the ground in the third video) points at Ramadan and tells an armed Israeli man in civilian clothing, “Kill him!” Half a second later, the Israeli man fires two shots toward Ramadan.
In the background, someone next to the camera is heard shouting, “Kill him, it’s him, it’s him!” Afterward, the settler in black is heard saying on the phone, “They took my gun; I don’t know where it is.”
At the 60-second mark, the settler in black turns around and walks away, and no gunshots are heard between that moment and the end of the video. It is unclear at this point whether Ramadan is still alive, lying on the ground several meters away from the military jeep.
After the incident, the army announced that “IDF forces neutralized the terrorist who carried out the shooting attack,” but Channel 11’s Haim Goldich claimed that it was a civilian who ultimately killed Ramadan.
The bodies of Ramadan and three of his relatives who were also killed in the incident — Ibrahim, Jawad, and Imran — were evacuated by Palestinians to a hospital in Nablus. In incidents deemed to be “terror attacks,” the army typically confiscates the bodies of Palestinians. Their evacuation to the hospital may suggest that the forces at the scene did not regard the incident as such, although it could merely reflect the extent of the chaos.
The Israeli army did not address +972 Magazine’s questions, stating only: “The IDF shares in the grief of the bereaved [Israeli] families and will continue to support them. The details of the attack and the incident are being thoroughly investigated by the IDF. The findings will be presented transparently to the bereaved families.”
Oren Ziv is a photojournalist, reporter for Local Call, and a founding member of the Activestills photography collective
Ariel Caine is a London-based, Jerusalem-born artist and researcher
