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 an Israeli 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.”