An Israeli Shooter Goes Free – and Returns to Terrorize a Grieving Palestinian Village
The operator of a large excavator who was wearing an appropriately large kippa was at work this week right near the small village of Umm al-Kheir, in the South Hebron Hills. The man dug and whistled, sang and excavated, as though to himself. He opened the window of the operator's cab, so that the villagers, whose meager homes are just a few meters from the excavation site, would be able to hear his provocative singing and whistling. There was no mistaking the intent.
Shortly beforehand, the operator's boss, Yinon Levi, owner of the earthworks company that is carrying out the excavations here, showed up accompanied by a settler armed with an M16 assault rifle.
Residents of Umm al-Kheir needed a particularly large dose of self-restraint in the face of this act of defiance by the person who just the previous week had killed one of the most beloved young people in this community of shepherds. And an equal measure of self-restraint in the face of the disgraceful Israeli law enforcement and judicial systems, which released the shooter with lightning speed, arrested no fewer than 21 residents who were trying to protect their property – including a young man who was injured when the excavator struck him maliciously a few minutes before Levi opened fire – and held the victim's body until yesterday Thursday, when his funeral was due to take place.
This is Israeli justice. This is the legal establishment that so many people are trying to defend. It's an apartheid system, now even more definitively. When the representative of the Israel Police was asked by the judge who dealt with the issue of Levi's remand why residents of the village who defended themselves were under arrest while the person who shot at them was going to be released, the officer replied: "These are two different populations." Is there a more succinct description of apartheid?
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On Monday, July 28, the day Awdah Hathaleen was killed, one settler-operated excavator was at work near the village. This past Monday, when we visited, three were clearing the rocky terrain. Another victory for the violence-welding invaders: They are leveling the ground adjacent to the shacks of Umm al-Kheir in order to build a neighborhood there, as part of the thriving settlement of Carmel. The latter is slowly spreading across the neighboring hills; some of that land belongs to people from Umm al-Kheir. A white plastic sewage pipe lying on the ground at the edge of the village marks the boundary of its territory. An excavator is just meters away.
On the day of the incident the operator of the machine crossed that line on his way back, crushed the pipe and trespassed on the village's land. The residents were appalled. Awdah, 31, a human rights activist, was killed as he filmed the provocative entry of the lumbering machine whose driver was accompanied by Levi, who shot the young man to death.
Ahmed Hathaleen , cousin of Awdah, in Umm al-Kheir, yesterday. Still shocked by what happened last week in the village.Credit: Alex Levac
The village's small, modest community center was abuzz with visitors this week: Israelis and foreigners had arrived to help, comfort and protect the battered community, which in early 2022 had already lost one of its members when he was hit by a vehicle belonging to Israel's security forces. That victim's son was one of those arrested now.
We are met by Tareq Hathaleen, a cousin who is about Awdah's age. They're both from the same village, attended the same schools and the same university. Together they became English teachers, together they fought for their rights. Tareq is single, Awdah was married and the father of three children. Ahmed Hathaleen, another cousin, slightly younger, has one arm in a splint. The excavator's long metal arm walloped him in the shoulder that same Monday.
The young people of Umm al-Kheir, Tareq and Ahmed in particular, are charming, warm and captivating; most of them are also fluent in Hebrew. For their part, the two cousins are still overwhelmed by what happened just days ago in this village of 220 residents, descendants of people banished from the Negev during the state's first years, whose homes are now slated for demolition. The occupation is here, and apartheid is here, too, in Umm al-Kheir, if anyone still had any doubts; indeed, the events of that Monday are decisive proof of this.
Tareq accompanies his narration of the events by screening footage shot by him and other villagers. The videos are long and reveal many details; we watched them frame by frame, in order not to miss anything. We also saw the last footage shot by Awdah himself, up until the moment he was killed.
The clips leave no room for doubt: Judge Chavi Toker, who released Levi last Friday under no special conditions, is in breach of her duty. Viewing the footage – and it's not clear whether her honor even bothered to watch it in full – leads to troubling thoughts about her functioning and that of a judicial system that makes it possible for a judge like her to sit on the bench. If there's a case of a judge's misjudgment, it's the judgment that released Levi like this. Still, the truth is that we could not have expected any other decision.
At 5:30 P.M. last Monday, the excavator's operator had finished his day's work. With him was Levi, who had arrived in his small white car. The operator planned to park the machine overnight in Carmel, whose entrance is blocked by a yellow iron gate. A stone's throw away from the village.
Instead of taking the road, the driver decided, apparently at Levi's instruction, to enter the yellow gate by passing through Umm al-Kheir. Tareq Hathaleen, for one, is certain that the two planned the whole provocative incident. At the sight of the excavator crossing their land and crushing olive saplings, the sewage pipe and a field in which crops were growing, the villagers called the police. It's hardly the first time that has happened, of course: The friction here is a daily occurrence.
In the videos Levi is seen getting out of his car, which he'd parked near the settlement's gate, waiting for the excavator. In the meantime, the villagers set out to block the excavator as it began to wreak havoc. For a moment, the scene evoked Tiananmen Square.
Ahmed stood in front of the plodding machine in an effort to block it, and at times even sat in its path. Awdah was filming him from quite a distance away; between him and his cousin was a group of women and children, who were screaming. Suddenly, in the clip, the excavator's arm could be seen striking Ahmed on the shoulder, knocking him to the ground. For a moment the people around him thought he had been killed. Indeed, the footage is frightening. Another inch and his head would have been hit.
Ahmed managed to get up and take a few steps before collapsing. This week he told us that he doesn't remember a thing, and added, "God didn't want for me and Awdah to die on the same day. That was too difficult, even for God."
Levi waved his pistol and suddenly fired two shots. The first seemed to be aimed at the women opposite him, but it missed them and killed Awdah, who was standing further away – 20-30 meters from the shooter. A second bullet was fired into the air.
Awdah, hit in the chest, collapsed. No other weapons were present; no other gunshots were heard. In any case the bullet entered and exited his body, and while Judge Toker apparently asked to see it, it had disappeared from the scene, which likely prompted her to exonerate Levi.
A photo of Awdah Hathaleen in Umm al-Kheir.Credit: Alex Levac
We watched the footage carefully, noting the time. The excavator encroached on the village's land at 5:24 P.M. The shot was heard at 5:29. The security chief at Carmel opened the gate at 5:31 to let the machine and Levi in. Local people carried Awdah to the gate and asked for the settlement's ambulance to be summoned. The ambulance arrived; Awdah was placed inside. He was probably already dead; two foreign volunteers in the village said they had tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him.
At 5:39, a group of villagers was filmed retreating from the gate, knowing that Awdah was dead, and throwing stones at Levi's empty car. The first military vehicle at the scene arrived at 5:41. The soldiers fired a stun grenade at the distraught group. A second army vehicle pulled up at 5:43. Shimon Attia, a settler known for his violent behavior, arrived together with two police cars at 5:44.
At no stage was Awdah seen endangering Levi's life. He had positioned himself quite a distance away, in order to document the goings-on. Maybe that's why he was shot?
The soldiers gathered the residents in the yard of Awdah's home, and kept them there for two hours. Infants, left to their own devices, were heard crying inside homes, but the soldiers refused to allow anyone to go to them.
One soldier even told a villager: "I'm sorry I wasn't the one who shot and killed [Awdah]."
Nasser Nawaj'ah, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, who lives in the nearby village of Sussiya, arrived at the scene together with Ali Awad, a resident of Umm al-Kheir who had been paying him a visit.
Women in Umm al-Kheir, this week.Credit: Alex Levac
Nawaj'ah says his "heart fell" when he heard about the shooting. Awdah had been like a brother to him, he said. He rushed to Umm al-Kheir along with his friend and with another local resident, Basel Adra, a co-director of the film "No Other Land," which won the Oscar for Best Documentary this year. Awdah can be seen in the film. We were told that the three were also shepherded into the improvised detention compound.
Nawaj'ah begged the soldiers to let the mothers in the group go to feed their children. He also requested that the soldiers treat them as human beings, but said one of the troops retorted: "You are not human beings."
Yinon Levi arrived with the police officers and pointed to a few of the residents being detained in the deceased's yard; the officers of the law did his bidding and took them into custody. Among them was Awad, who was actually in Sussiya with Nawaj'ah at the time of the shooting.
Levi walked around with a smile on his face, the villagers related. "He has the smile of a snake," one of them said this week. Five residents were arrested that same night.
The army returned the following night, going from house to house and detaining nine more people, including Ahmed, the injured man who had just spent a night in hospital. Four more were arrested the next day, and another three on the day after that.
All told, 21 villagers were taken into custody, apparently for the crime of causing the shooting of their friend by the settler. All were handcuffed and blindfolded, and were left like that for about 24 hours. After being interrogated at the security forces' Etzion facility, they were transferred to Ofer Prison, near Ramallah.
Tareq Hathaleen with an excavator at work in the background, this week. Residents used their cellphones to document how the army brutally expelled people from the mourning tent for his cousin, Awdah.Credit: Alex Levac
Most of them were released a day or so later – dumped at the Jib checkpoint near Ramallah, far from home. Their cellphones haven't yet been returned. At midweek seven were still in custody, among them Awdah's bereaved brother, Aziz, 42, the father of nine children.
Residents used their cellphones to document how the army brutally expelled people from the mourning tent the day after the incident. The army and the police initially demanded that Awdah's funeral be held in the middle of the night with no more than 15 people attending, and in the presence of troops. The villagers refused. "We are not burying a thief or a terrorist. We are burying Awdah." Afterward the authorities announced that Awdah would have to be buried in the city of Yatta, near Hebron. That demand was also rejected. "Awdah was born here and will be buried here," his neighbors asserted.
In the end Israeli forces erected barriers to prevent people from outside Umm al-Kheir from attending the funeral.
The day we visited some 70 veiled women in black were sitting near Awdah's home, on a hunger strike, since his body had yet to be returned. The grieving mother, Khadra, fainted. Next to the saplings, some of which had been crushed by the excavator, we saw signs erected by a Dutch foundation called Plant een Olijfboom (Plant an Olive Tree) which – along with the YMCA of East Jerusalem and the YWCA of Palestine – donated the trees. The signs read: "Gratitude to those who choose to keep hope alive (March 2024)."
Before we left Tareq told us that if Levi had shot a dog, he would probably still be in custody.