Man, 25, moderately hurt in stone-throwing near Sebastia in Samaria

A man of about 25 was moderately injured with a head wound and four other people were lightly hurt when stones were thrown at them in Samaria, close to Sebastia, according to Magen David Adom, Israel's national emergency medical service. The organisation said its emergency line received the call at 09:30 and that the injured man was being taken to Beilinson Hospital.

A separate account published by the Israeli news channel News.co.il said dozens of Arabs from the village of Ramin attacked Jews in grazing land belonging to Brit Avraham. That report agrees on the overall picture of one person with a head injury and four with light injuries, but it differs from the medical service on several details, set out below.

What Magen David Adom reported

Magen David Adom, usually shortened to MDA, operates Israel's ambulance network and is the body Israelis reach by dialling 101 in a medical emergency. Its spokesperson's office said the report reached the 101 dispatch centre serving its Yarkon region, one of the administrative areas into which the service divides the country. The call described several people hurt by stone-throwing.

According to MDA, its medics and paramedics treated the man of about 25, whom they described as being in moderate condition with a head injury, and began evacuating him to Beilinson Hospital. Four further casualties, all in mild condition, were being treated at the scene, the service said. MDA indicated that it would publish further information later.

The second account: Ramin and Brit Avraham

News.co.il gave a fuller version of how the incident started. In its telling, the people hurt were Jews in pastureland associated with Brit Avraham, and the attackers were dozens of residents of Ramin, a Palestinian village. The channel did not say what Brit Avraham is, and MDA did not mention it at all.

The same report described a different evacuation route. It said the person with the head injury was pulled out of the area in a Ranger, a type of off-road utility vehicle, to meet a military vehicle at Sebastia, and was later to be handed over to MDA crews. It also said the four lightly injured people did not need medical treatment.

Where the two reports disagree

The accounts diverge on two points that readers should weigh. First, MDA said its teams were treating four people with light injuries on site, while News.co.il said those four required no treatment. Second, MDA described its own crews treating and evacuating the seriously hurt man, whereas News.co.il described an initial evacuation by off-road vehicle and military transport before any handover to the medical service. The reports may describe different stages of the same evacuation, but neither says so, and this article does not attempt to reconcile them.

Only News.co.il identifies the attackers or names Ramin and Brit Avraham. MDA's statement refers only to stone-throwing near Sebastia and does not say who was responsible.

The setting

Samaria is the name used in Israel, and in MDA's statement, for the northern part of the West Bank. Sebastia is a Palestinian village in that area. Grazing land in the West Bank has in recent years been a frequent point of friction between Israeli herders and neighbouring Palestinian communities, and incidents involving stones are among the most commonly reported forms of violence there. Neither report places this particular event in that wider pattern, and neither describes any earlier dispute between the parties named.

Beilinson Hospital, where MDA said the injured man was being taken, is one of the major hospitals in central Israel and regularly receives casualties transferred from the northern West Bank.

What the reports do not say

Neither report names any of the injured or says whether they live in the area. Neither gives an update on the condition of the man with the head wound after he was evacuated. There is no statement in the material from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or the police, so it is not known whether anyone was detained or whether an investigation has been opened. The number of people who threw stones rests on a single account, News.co.il's "dozens", and the identification of the village of Ramin likewise comes only from that channel. No Palestinian account of the incident appears in the material.