Four Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in a shooting on July 24, 2026, in the village of Tell near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, making it the deadliest attack in the territory this year, according to The Guardian.

The circumstances of the incident are sharply contested. Walid Zidan, head of the Tell village council, told Agence France-Presse that approximately 20 Israeli settlers entered the village at about 8:30 a.m. local time. Zidan said Israeli soldiers were present and that settlers and soldiers together began opening fire. The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the event as a "massacre committed by settlers in partnership with the occupation forces in the village of Tell." The Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah said the four Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.

The Israeli military offered a markedly different account. It said it deployed soldiers after receiving reports of an attack against Israeli civilians who were hiking near Havat Gilad, a West Bank settlement in the vicinity of Tell. According to the military, attackers seized the weapon of a member of the security forces at the scene and opened fire. Israel's Magen David Adom rescue services confirmed the Israeli killed was a man in his 30s. Social media channels run by settler communities identified the Israeli victim as a resident of Havat Gilad.

All four Palestinians killed were from the same family and shared the same last name. Video of the attack posted online showed several people who appear to be Palestinians lying on the ground in a field near the village, apparently having been shot. Injured Palestinians were taken to Nablus Speciality Hospital, according to France 24. Palestinian health officials said they were treating four injured Palestinians, three of them in critical condition. Israel's rescue service reported two injured Israelis were being airlifted out of the West Bank.

The Israeli military said it imposed a "temporary cordon" around Nablus and Tell following the incident. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said he would meet with his defense minister and chief of staff to discuss a response. A statement from Netanyahu's office said Israel would "act forcefully against the terrorists."

The casualty count on both sides and the involvement of both settlers and uniformed soldiers place this incident among the more combustible episodes in the West Bank in recent months. The fact that four Palestinian dead come from a single family will intensify pressure on the Palestinian Authority to respond publicly, while the death of an Israeli civilian and the seizure of a security-force weapon give the Israeli political establishment a clear domestic mandate for retaliatory action. Netanyahu's convening of his defense minister and chief of staff signals that a military response is likely under preparation, though no specifics have been announced.

Settler community channels called for a wave of attacks to "erase" the village following the incident. Such rhetoric has preceded organized settler reprisals in the past, and the "temporary cordon" around Nablus and Tell will constrain movement for tens of thousands of Palestinians in the area, a measure that has itself been a source of friction between Israeli security authorities and Palestinian civic institutions.

The two narratives, as they stand, are not easily reconcilable. The Palestinian account describes a coordinated armed entry by settlers and soldiers into a Palestinian village. The Israeli account describes a response to an attack on Israeli civilians, with the weapon of a security-force member seized by Palestinian assailants. Video material circulating online may help clarify the sequence of events, but neither side has released a comprehensive timeline. The gap between these accounts and the speed with which each has been disseminated underscores how rapidly incidents in the West Bank move from local confrontation to framed national narrative on both sides.

What comes next will likely be shaped by two variables: the scale and scope of any Israeli military response, and whether settler mobilization around the "erase" call materializes into organized action against Tell or neighboring villages. Both carry the potential to escalate beyond the immediate locality.