Palestinian gunmen opened fire near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Tuesday killing four people, Israeli emergency services said.

Earlier this week, two Hamas terrorists murdered four Israelis at a gas station and restaurant. As Palestinian Media Watch reported, Abbas’ Fatah Movement was quick to praise them as “heroic Martyrs” and “men true to what they promised Allah.”

Fatah also stressed that the two murderers were “two heroic Martyrdom-seekers … who carried out the heroic ‘Eli colony’ operation.”

The Palestinian Authority (PA) presented the two murderers as innocent victims, and mentioned their terror attack as something that happened of its own accord:

Official PA TV newsreader: “The deaths as Martyrs of two young people: Young Muhannad Shehadeh, 26, was shot by the occupation … and an additional act of assassination against young Khaled Sabah [i.e., Hamas terrorists, murdered 4] … Today a shooting operation took place that caused the killing of 4 settlers, and the wounding of 4 others.”

[Official PA TV, June 20, 2023]

The official PA daily called the murderers “civilians” who “died as Martyrs,” while “4 settlers were killed and 4 others were wounded.” It then quoted Israeli media to describe the two murderers’ terror attack, while still taking pains to refer to the attack as “a shooting operation.”

The following is a longer excerpt of the report in the official PA daily:

Headline: “Four civilians died as Martyrs and four settlers were killed, the terrorists in the West Bank go out of control”

“Four [Palestinian] civilians died as Martyrs, 4 settlers were killed and 4 others were wounded. Meanwhile, the settlers escalated their terror attacks throughout the West Bank.

Young Muhannad Faleh Abdallah Shehadeh and Khaled Mustafa Abd Al-Latif Sabah died as Martyrs yesterday evening…

Shehadeh, a 26-year-old youth, was shot by a settler and died as a Martyr at the Ramallah-Nablus road, next to Lubban Al-Sharqiya. The occupation authorities are holding onto his body.

Israeli media sources noted that a settler shot young Shehadeh after he carried out a shooting operation in the area, in which four settlers were killed and a number of others were wounded. Later on Sabah, a 24-year-old youth, was shot by a special unit of the Israeli occupation army and died as a Martyr north of Tubas…

Israeli media sources noted that young Sabah participated in carrying out the shooting operation at the Ramallah-Nablus road together with Martyr Shehadeh…

According to Israeli reports, the two who carried out [the operation] shot at a settlement guard, and then advanced toward the adjacent gas station and attacked two people. Afterwards one of them entered a restaurant at the gas station and shot a number of people who were inside.”

The author is a senior analyst at Palestinian Media Watch, where a version of this article first appeared.