Rizik ran on. Next to him was a young man who spoke to Al Jazeera later, requesting anonymity for his safety.
He said Rizik fell while jumping over a stone wall, hurting his legs, but that when they saw two boys who needed help, Rizik joined the young man in carrying them to safety.
But then Rizik and his friend found themselves surrounded by settlers.
They ran, but just as he dove for cover in the bushes, the friend saw a settler shoot Rizik in the chest.
“The settlers started shouting: ‘Yes! I got you!’” he recalled, describing how several settlers gathered around Rizik as he lay on the ground.
At about the time of the shooting, Rizik had called his family, but the family told others the call lasted only seconds, with no response from Rizik, although they heard shouts in Hebrew in the background.
Rizik’s friend ran for his life down the side of the mountain, heading east.
At 3:18pm, he sent a panicked voice message to local WhatsApp groups, begging for help: “Someone’s been martyred!” he beseeched.
[Audio]: Witness to Muhammad Rizik al-Shalabi’s shooting, believing he’s been killed and sending a voice message calling for help.
Later reconstructions estimated that Rizik may have still been alive at the time, but he was dead by the time search parties were able to access the area to look for him.
Meanwhile, Saif and others were running for their lives further south, headed towards Ain al-Sarara.
As family members confirmed to Al Jazeera, one of those young men was caught along the way and tied up by a gang of about nine settlers.
Witnesses say the settlers repeatedly smashed the young man in the knee with their weapons, then dragged him, tied up, into a car and shot bullets all around him.
Then they threw him to the ground over and over, until the young man was begging them to kill him.
“They said: ‘I’m not going to kill you,’” a friend recalled on TikTok. “‘I’m going to chop off your arms and your legs and throw you on the side of the road like a dog.’”
According to Sinjil activist Ayed Ghafari, among the settlers was Yahariv Mangory, reportedly the leader of the outpost builders in al-Baten, who was carrying an M16 rifle.
Mangory later identified himself in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 as the “owner” of the al-Baten outposts.
Saif and the others had managed to go up a hill, but at about 3:30pm, they were met by a group of settlers coming downhill and attacked them from above, according to Ghafari, who spoke with the young men.
The settlers were pelting the young men with rocks, with occasional bullets zooming past them as they made their way down the hill.
A settler hit Saif square in the back with a rock, toppling him. He was instantly surrounded by a group of settlers who beat him with clubs and sticks all over, according to witnesses.
Dazed, Saif staggered to his feet after the settlers stopped beating him, heading south down the hill until he came across a big oak tree where a young Palestinian man was hiding.
Battered, he sank to the ground there for the next two and a half hours as the young man tried to reach out to people from Mazraa, asking for help.
Saif was vomiting and struggling to breathe, his condition worsening by the minute.
That was when Muhammad caught word that his big brother was in trouble.
