Halevi claims that an examination of freely accessible Palestinian sources show that at least three members of the al-Samouni family were affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad group; Tawfiq al-Samouni, who was killed on January 5, was supposedly a Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative. Moreover, he suggests that the official Palestinian Islamic Jihad version of the occurrences on the day of the incident indicate that its fighters had been operating in the area against IDF. Based on the evidences, he suggests that it is plausible civilians were caught in the fighting.[93][94][95]