Palestinian who snatched settler’s weapon was killed while unarmed, videos show
A screenshot from a video showing Farouk Ramadan (circled) walking unarmed toward Israeli soldiers before he is shot dead, in the village of Tel, occupied West Bank, 24 July 2026
Oren Ziv and Ariel Caine report in +972 on 28 July 2026:
On Friday morning, a group of Israeli settlers from the 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 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.”
+972 and Local Call analyzed four videos from the scene that have circulated online, filmed by both Israelis and Palestinians who were present.