Israel charges settler in killing of Palestinian activist in West Bank

Prosecutors charged an Israeli settler on Thursday in the killing of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in the occupied West Bank, the first such indictment since the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023, activists say.

“Yinon Eliya Levi [33], from Ma’on, has been charged with allegedly firing toward an area where people were present during a confrontation that developed over earthworks on private land, causing the death of the late Awdah Hathaleen,” Israel’s Ministry of Justice said on X.

“The Southern District Prosecutor’s Office has filed an indictment against him … on charges of reckless manslaughter, trespassing, and willful property damage.”

Hathaleen, an activist who took part in the production of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was killed in July 2025 during a settler attack on his village of Umm al-Khair, in the southern West Bank.

Umm al-Khair sits in the region of Masafer Yatta, where Palestinian communities have faced frequent settler violence and home demolitions by the military, which has declared parts of the area an army firing zone.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem said the indictment was the first of its kind for the killing of a Palestinian in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, which marked the beginning of a surge in violence in the West Bank.

“The decision to indict Yinon Levi is the exception that proves the rule,” B’Tselem spokesman Yair Dvir told AFP, accusing Israel of fostering a culture of impunity that “is not a failure of the system – it is a central component”.

Hathaleen’s attorney Eitan Peleg told AFP the indictment “is a very important decision. I hope it will be a precedent in future cases of [Israelis] committing crimes against Palestinians in Palestine.

“Many Palestinians are killed by settlers, by the army, but this was the first time a full investigation was held and they had no other option but to charge. This was a very clear case,” he added.

Palestinian rights group Al-Haq conducted a forensic investigation of Hathaleen’s killing, using footage in which Levi is seen shooting at a crowd of Palestinians in Umm al-Khair the day he was killed.

The US and EU placed sanctions on Levi in April 2024 for previous violent attacks on Palestinians.

Excluding Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, some 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank among some three million Palestinians. All settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, are illegal under international law.