DailyDrop.

At the end of the weekend, several reports of settler violence in Judea and Samaria appeared in Israel, and together they rose to the top of the agenda. The Ynet website published footage of Jewish rioters attacking European diplomats near a Christian village in the West Bank, and the item also appeared among the top headlines of Google News Israel. According to the headline of another article on the site, a diplomat who took part in the tour said that “the rioters kicked the mayor in the head” and that Netanyahu’s statement was “shocking.” These are the words of one person, and it was not reported how the Prime Minister’s Office responded to the quote itself.

Ynet also reported on an American photographer who underwent surgery and whose finger was nearly severed after an attack by Jewish rioters. Haaretz English wrote that President Isaac Herzog apologized to the Washington Post photographer, condemned settler violence and called for those responsible to be brought to justice. According to the same report, the Prime Minister’s Office, for its part, issued a warning, and its full content is not given in the summary that was published. That is, the President’s Residence and Netanyahu’s office adopted two different versions of the same event.

The report on the American photographer added an international dimension: Ynet said she underwent surgery in a hospital, and that the injury to her finger was severe enough to risk amputation. Haaretz English reports that Herzog’s apology was directed at her, and that the President’s Residence called for those responsible to be brought to justice. These statements were made, according to the report, in parallel with the statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, and the two messages were heard in close proximity and in different wordings.

On Saturday evening, demonstrators arrived at Habima Square in Tel Aviv demanding the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, against the background of the defamation suit filed by the former Shin Bet chief against Netanyahu. A former police commissioner who spoke there said, as quoted by Ynet, that “settler violence is spreading like a cancer in the body of the nation.” The same day Ynet published footage from the southern Hebron Hills in which masked men steal a flock of sheep from Palestinians in front of soldiers. According to the report, the soldiers who were there ignored what happened, and acted only afterward.

It is important to distinguish between what is documented and what is said. The attack on the diplomats, the injury to the photographer and the theft in the Hebron Hills are documented in the media reports, and Herzog’s apology was published in his name. By contrast, the quote about a kick to the mayor’s head comes from a single diplomat, and there is not yet an official statement from Israel or the European Union that confirmed its details. The political reactions are also still partial, and the work week that begins today will show whether police complaints are filed or whether ambassadors are summoned for clarification talks.

Whether this is a new escalation or an isolated outburst remains an open question, because cumulative incident data were not published in the reports at hand. What is clear is that the issue has entered the discourse in the days of an election campaign, and criticism of settler violence has been heard in the past week both from the President’s Residence and from the Tel Aviv demonstration. In the coming days it is worth following statements from the army and the police, and checking whether they are accompanied by open investigations and names of suspects. Until then, the video footage is the only fact that no one disputes.