A Palestinian activist was killed by the violence he sought to cease

UMM AL-KHAIR, West Financial institution — On this village of 500 folks within the West Financial institution, a bulldozer labored steadily at a pile of boulders close to cement-block homes.

The sounds of shoveling and heavy equipment might be heard underneath the cries of mourning from the place dozens of villagers and guests gathered on July 31 to grieve for Awdah Al Hathaleen, a beloved 31-year-old Palestinian activist, father of three and documentary filmmaker who was shot right here 4 days earlier.

Hathaleen died within the type of violence he spent his life attempting to finish. His story is that of many Palestinians residing within the West Financial institution underneath Israeli occupation, with their lives and livelihoods underneath rising risk from a strongly supported settler motion that’s urged on by Israel’s present right-wing authorities.

In a broadly circulated video, a settler who introduced his bulldozer to the village in late July is seen waving and taking pictures his handgun towards villagers on the time Hathaleen was struck by a bullet. The settler, Yinon Levi, has lengthy been infamous for assaults towards Palestinians within the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution. He’s at the moment underneath European Union sanctions for human rights violations. He was additionally sanctioned by the U.S. till January, when President Trump lifted these sanctions.

Levi was held by police for lower than 24 hours, and after a short interval underneath home arrest is now free with no costs.

In response to Muslim custom, burial of the lifeless ought to happen inside 24 hours, however Israeli authorities held Hathaleen’s physique for 10 days, conserving his family members in agony whereas authorities insisted on restrictions round his funeral. Ultimately, Hathaleen’s household accepted the military’s restrictions on the funeral gathering and burial to have the ability to get his physique again. He was lastly laid to relaxation final Thursday, in a funeral attended by household, native residents and some journalists who had been capable of get previous a navy checkpoint.

Sarcastically, the incident that led to Hathaleen’s dying mirrored occasions within the Oscar-winning documentary Hathaleen helped make. No Different Land tells the story of the wrestle of Palestinian villagers towards violence by Israeli settlers on this space, and the continuous encroachment by settlers of their land.

Hathaleen was broadly identified and revered all over the world

Nadav Weiman is a former Israeli soldier who heads a corporation of former troopers known as Breaking the Silence, which is working to finish Israel’s occupation of the West Financial institution. Weiman says Hathaleen’s South Hebron Hills sheep herding village of Palestinian Bedouins was one of many first the place his group introduced Israelis on instructional visits some 20 years in the past.

“Awdah was a peace activist but also a man of education,” says Weiman. “He could really speak to crowds and that’s why we brought so many people to meet him — because he gave a very interesting angle of what it is to be a Palestinian under Israeli occupation.”

Due to his work on No Different Land and his years of activism, Hathaleen, who was additionally an English instructor, had pals from everywhere in the world. Lots of of individuals joined a Zoom name to mourn him shortly after his dying. Many remembered working carefully with him.

European diplomats had been amongst these paying respects to Hathaleen’s reminiscence in Umm al-Khair forward of his funeral. Their SUVs had been parked on the small street that separates the village from the tightly fenced-in Jewish settlement of Carmel on a hill above it. The diplomats sat collectively underneath the mourning tent with dozens of village residents to supply condolences to Hathaleen’s brother Khalil Al Hathaleen.

“It is a terrible crime and it shows how vulnerable Palestinian communities are,” mentioned Swedish diplomat Annika Malki. “We take this very seriously in Sweden and we would like to do what we can on our side.”

Khalil Al Hathaleen appealed to the diplomats.

“We hope from you to protect the local community here,” he mentioned. “Because we’re being exposed to cleansing. Look around you. There’s no problem, there’s no military, no one’s evicting us — because you’re Europeans and you’re here. But the moment you leave, they’re going to come here.”

Assaults by settlers have elevated since 2023

Israeli activist Man Butavia has labored within the South Hebron Hills for 15 years to assist communities hold their land as settlers attempt to take it away. He says whereas the increasing settlements have encroached on Palestinian land for many years, development has accelerated underneath the federal government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Cupboard consists of far-right settlers. Assaults on Palestinians have elevated, particularly because the conflict set off by the lethal Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Between January and June of this yr, there have been greater than 2,000 settler assaults leading to casualties or injury to property, in line with OCHA, the United Nations humanitarian coordination physique. In that interval, 647 Palestinians have been killed within the West Financial institution — six killed in settler assaults, and many of the relaxation by Israeli forces. In all of 2024, OCHA recorded about 1,420 settler assaults and 5 Palestinian deaths.

Israeli peace activist Oriel Eisner has been staying in a single day in Umm al-Khair since Hathaleen’s killing, to bear witness. He says after guests like diplomats and journalists depart, the Israeli military strikes in at evening to make arrests of village males. Greater than a dozen younger males from the village had been arrested after Hathaleen was shot, some allegedly for throwing rocks on the bulldozer. They had been held for greater than every week.

“People aren’t sleeping,” he says. “People are terrified. The settlers, and the government in lockstep with them, are just doing whatever they want and taking over whatever land they want, doing whatever they want with the Palestinians.”

“In the last two years, it’s a totally different ballgame,” says Butavia. “The rules of the game changed. We used to protect Palestinians when they were going out to graze their livestock. Now they can’t reach their lands and can barely get out of the doors of their homes without coming under threat.”

He says activists have modified methods — they’re now staying in a single day inside Palestinian houses to attempt to defend them and bear witness to settler violence. As a result of, he says, “If it’s not on camera, it didn’t happen.”

Because the conflict, he says, some settlers are actually serving within the Israeli navy and are available again to patrol West Financial institution communities close to their very own settlements, the place they behave with impunity. “They do whatever they like,” he says. “They are setting the rules. They decide who to arrest, who to kidnap, who to beat. They decide where you can go and where you cannot.”

In Hathaleen’s final message to his massive WhatsApp group when the settler bulldozer rolled into his village on Sunday, July 27 — learn aloud on the gathering with international diplomats and dignitaries earlier than his funeral — he warned that settlers had been attempting to chop water to his neighborhood.

“The settlers are working behind our houses,” he wrote. “If they cut the pipe, the community here will literally be without any drop of water.”

A mom’s grief

Within the girls’s mourning tent, Hathaleen’s mom Khadra Al Hathaleen mentioned her son was preparing for a visit to the U.S. when the difficulty started on the day he was shot.

“He was inside preparing his papers,” she says. “Then this guy came on the bulldozer and started cutting the olive trees. Somebody called for Awdah, so he went out. I followed — and there was blood.”

Hathaleen was not even in direct confrontation with Levi and his bulldozer, she says. He was struck whereas standing in a fenced-off, porch-like space. An Israeli ambulance confirmed up and he or she says she tried to accompany her son, who was nonetheless alive at that time.

“They took him and I said I want to go with my son,” she mentioned. “But I was not allowed. Somebody hit me on the hand and slapped me on the face. It was the same guy who killed him.”

There’s a massive black bruise on her hand. After her son’s dying, villagers positioned a circle of rocks across the space of concrete stained together with his blood, the place the place he had fallen and struggled for breath.

Villagers hoped No Different Land‘s success would assist defend them

“Awdah was our friend and he was a partner,” says Rabbi Avi Dabush, CEO of Rabbis for Human Rights, who was amongst many Jewish activists current within the mourning tent forward of the funeral. “Unfortunately in [the government] there are people that believe only in violence, believe in Jewish supremacy. We believe in the core values for us of Judaism and even Zionism, of living together, or reaching out in peace.”

Folks on this village say they believed the Oscar-winning documentary that helped spotlight their wrestle with settler violence may deliver them a measure of safety — maybe even lay the groundwork for peace.

However simply the other has occurred, laments Basel Adra, one of many movie’s administrators. “Awdah was the most peaceful person,” he says. “He was the person that always gathered us — and he was shot in front of the community center that he built for the kids to play and to have summer camp and to learn.”

It has been greater than two weeks now since Hathaleen misplaced his life. His household needed to bury him in a graveyard chosen by Israeli authorities. Activists say most days, Yinon Levi is again in Umm al-Khair engaged on his bulldozer — a reminder of who controls this land.

Nuha Musleh contributed to this story from Umm al-Khair.