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AN ISRAELI SETTLER has been charged over the killing of Palestinian activist and teacher Awdah Hathaleen, in what rights groups say is the first indictment of an Israeli settler for killing a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank since October 2023.

Israel’s Ministry of Justice announced today that 33-year-old Israeli settler Yinon Elia Levi had been indicted on charges including reckless manslaughter, trespassing and wilful property damage.

The charges relate to the fatal shooting of Hathaleen during a confrontation in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair in the occupied West Bank in July last year.

Hathaleen, 31, was a father of three, an English teacher at a local school and a prominent activist who featured in the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which documented life under Israeli occupation in the Masafer Yatta region.

Hathaleen was widely regarded as one of the leading community organisers in Umm al-Khair, regularly hosting international visitors and documenting settler violence in the area.

Video from the scene of Hathaleen’s murder in July last year appeared to show Levi firing towards a group of Palestinians after Israeli-owned heavy machinery entered privately owned land.

An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta. Residents identified Yinon Levi, sanctioned by the EU and US, as the shooter. This is him in the video firing like crazy. pic.twitter.com/xH1Uo6L1wN

— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) July 28, 2025

Hathaleen was shot in the chest during the incident, and was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.

Levi, who founded the nearby illegal settler outpost of Meitarim Farms, has previously been sanctioned by the European Union, the UK and Canada over violence against Palestinians. He was also sanctioned by the administration of former US president Joe Biden before those sanctions were lifted by President Donald Trump.

Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem said the indictment was unprecedented since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza October 2023, when violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank intensified sharply.

“The decision to indict Yinon Levi is the exception that proves the rule,” B’Tselem spokesperson Yair Dvir told AFP, arguing that impunity for violence against Palestinians remained systemic.

Hathaleen’s lawyer, Eitan Peleg, described the indictment as “a very important decision”.

“I hope it will be a precedent in future cases of Israelis committing crimes against Palestinians,” Peleg said.

“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.”

When Hathaleen was killed, residents and international activists accused Israeli settlers of attacking the village before the shooting.

Following his death, Israeli authorities declared Umm al-Khair a closed military zone and arrested several Palestinian residents.

Since then, campaigners say the pressure on the village has intensified. Community leaders say the entire village has since received a final demolition order, settlers have cut water and electricity supplies, blocked the road used by children to reach school and destroyed hundreds of olive trees.

The killing prompted international condemnation and even inspired Bono to write the song One Life At A Time, which the U2 frontman said was dedicated to Hathaleen, describing him as “an extraordinary Palestinian man” who was “murdered in the West Bank by a violent fundamentalist Israeli settler”.

According to the UN, 1,111 Palestinians, including at least 243 children, were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, between 7 October 2023 and 13 July 2026. Sixty-five of those deaths occurred this year.

Around three million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank alongside approximately 500,000 Israeli settlers.

All Israeli settlements in the territory, which have been occupied since 1967, are considered illegal under international law.

Additional reporting from AFP

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