The same West Bank weekend was reported as four wounded by one outlet and nineteen by another

Al Jazeera reported on 22 August that at least 19 Palestinians were injured across the West Bank in Israeli military raids and settler attacks, citing Palestinian health officials and local media, and that Israeli forces shot and wounded three Palestinians attempting to cross into Israel; a Reuters photograph from 21 August (Mussa Qawasma) showed armed settlers who had set fire to stone-quarry machinery near Hebron. The Times of Israel’s headline for the same weekend read “At least 4 Palestinians said injured in settler attacks across West Bank”, citing WAFA’s report of two injured after armed settlers raided Arraba, south of Jenin, opening fire near homes — WAFA did not specify whether the wounded were hit by gunfire. Haaretz reported the Arraba attack with “several reportedly wounded”. The Jerusalem Post, citing Army Radio, reported that settlers set fire to a home in the village and that a 65-year-old Palestinian was evacuated for smoke inhalation.

The figures that neither side of the Israeli press disputes come from the security establishment itself, obtained by the public broadcaster Kan and reported by the Times of Israel on 18 August. They record 660 serious incidents of Jewish nationalistic crime in the West Bank between January and June 2026, against 405 in the same period of 2025 — a 63% increase. Six Palestinians were killed and 140 wounded in settler violence in the first half of 2026, compared with zero deaths and 82 injuries in the first half of 2025. Attacks on Israeli security forces rose 50%, to 45 incidents. The same reporting recorded settlers torching Palestinian fields in Turmus Ayya and attacking two other locations on the night of Monday 17 August, injuring at least two, per Palestinian media.

Assessment: The four-versus-nineteen gap is method rather than mendacity, and worth naming as such: Israeli desks publish only what WAFA, Army Radio or the IDF will attach a name to, while Al Jazeera aggregates ministry totals. Readers of either outlet alone get a coherent but incomplete weekend. What matters more is the asymmetry of placement — the Kan figures are Israeli government data, effectively uncontestable by the coalition, and they surfaced in a liveblog entry while the Syria file ran across front pages for four days. Nine weeks from a vote in which security is the decisive axis, that is an editorial choice with a constituency.