As vast swathes of forest near Jerusalem burned on the night of April 30, Israeli media scrambled to cover what could be one of the worst wildfire disasters in the country’s history. But while headlines speculated on the scale and source of the fires, one fact buried deeper in the coverage stands out: Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian farmland that same night.

Haaretz, one of the country’s leading newspapers, reported that settlers threw stones and set Palestinian agricultural land ablaze, citing Israeli security officials as the source. That detail, confirmed by the very state investigating the wildfires, has received little attention outside the original article. And yet, as of now, these settlers remain the only confirmed arsonists operating that night.

No reports have emerged implicating Palestinians or others in the start of the wider fires. Nor have authorities stated the fires near Jerusalem and the settler arson are linked. But the chronology is unavoidable. On the same night that firestorms swept through forests and towns, destroying homes and infrastructure, a known group of extremists deliberately ignited land in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli government has declared a state of emergency, launched investigations, and suggested that some fires may have been started deliberately. Arrests have been made for suspected arson. Yet the only public, named case of arson involves settlers attacking Palestinian farmland. That fact has been treated as separate, isolated, and irrelevant by much of the media.

In a country with a long history of shielding its settler population from accountability, this silence is damning. If the situation were reversed, if Palestinians were confirmed to have set fires on the same night as a national catastrophe, the headlines would be full of blame, and the consequences swift.

But here, settler arson is reported, then forgotten. No connection is drawn. No questions asked. The state cannot be expected to investigate itself fairly, and Israeli media—despite pockets of integrity like Haaretz—has proven unreliable when the culprits are from within. The result is a news landscape where the only confirmed arsonists of April 30 disappear into the fog.

Until more evidence emerges, one thing is certain: settlers started fires that night. No one else has been publicly identified. And that simple fact should lead every report.