[Elder of Ziyon] Dueling accounts of shooting in Samaria

Which sounds more likely?

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian man was shot and injured Saturday during clashes with Israeli settlers who attacked his village in the central West Bank, medical officials said.

Hassan Muatan, 40, was shot in the abdomen after armed settlers stormed the Burqa village east of Ramallah and attempted to vandalize property, witnesses said.

Muatan was evacuated to the Palestine Medical Compound. His wounds were described as moderate.

According to residents of the village, locals confronted the settlers who then opened fire. Security forces also intervened and themselves fired at the villagers, they said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the army was aware of the incident but uninvolved.

From Arutz-7:

A Palestinian Authority attack on Samaria Jews ended with a PA man's injury on the Sabbath. The incident took place between the Jewish village of Givat Assaf and the PA town of Kfar Burqa, both in the Binyamin region.

A group of Jews from Givat Assaf were walking in the hills near their town when they were attacked by PA Arabs from Burqa. The PA group lobbed heavy stones at the Jewish hikers.

One of the men from Givat Assaf responded by pulling out his gun and shooting an attacker. The man later told police that he had felt his life was in danger.

The PA man he hit was lightly wounded. He was treated in a PA hospital in Ramallah.

Police and IDF soldiers arrived at the scene and separated the two groups. The incident is under investigation.

Given that religious Jews are unlikely to go out of their way to vandalize property on the Sabbath, the very small possibility that the IDF would open fire in a situation like that, and the notorious unreliability of Palestinian "eyewitnesses,"  the Arutz-7 version of the story seems to be closer to the truth.

Walla seems to confirm the Arutz-7 version of the story - nothing about vandalism, nothing about the IDF shooting, both of which seem highly unlikely. But it says that the shooter, a 19 year old, was detained by police.




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Posted By Elder of Ziyon to Elder of Ziyon at 3/25/2012 01:00:00 AM