An Israeli settler with an established history of violence shot dead Palestinian journalist Odeh Muhammad Hadalin on Monday, according to the Palestinian Authority.
Hadalin, 31, rose to prominence last year for his work on No Other Land, an Oscar-winning documentary about Palestinians struggling to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. This area stretches across the eastern border of Israel, territory it captured along with East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 war.
Yinon Levi, the Israeli settler who killed Hathaleen, was sanctioned by the US, and the European Union in 2024 for his previous violent attacks on Palestinians. While the Trump administration removed his sanctioned status early this year, he remains blacklisted by both the EU and UK.
Hadalin was “shot dead by settlers” during an “attack on the village of Umm al-Khair”, the Palestinian Authority said.
One of the four co-directors of the documentary shared a video on social media showing the Israeli settler screaming and brandishing a gun at the time of Hadalin’s shooting.
“An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land… This is him in the video firing like crazy,” wrote Yuval Abraham.
Basel Adra, another co-director of the documentary, said Hadalin was “slaughtered” when he was standing in front of the community centre in his village.
“… a settler fired a bullet that pierced his chest and took his life. This is how Israel erases us – one life at a time,” she said.
Context of impunity and escalating violence
The Biden administration imposed sanctions in eight separate rounds throughout 2024 on a total of 17 individuals and 16 entities for committing “extremist settler violence in the [occupied] West Bank”. Their sanctioned designation restricted their ability to transact through formal banking channels.
Immediately after taking the oath of office on January 20, however, President Trump signed an executive order that lifted those sanctions.
Although international focus has largely been on the war in Gaza since October 7, 2023, the occupied West Bank has also seen a sharp rise in settler attacks and military incursions, leaving hundreds of people dead and injured.
As many as 159 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank between January 1 and July 21, according to UN statistics.
In addition to security forces, civilian Israeli settlers routinely wreak havoc on Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank.
For example, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented at least 27 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians between July 15 and 21 that resulted in casualties, property damage, or both.
Israeli settlers also vandalised more than 560 olive, almond, avocado, fig, and grape trees and saplings during the same seven-day period.
Israel has used these settlements, illegal under international law, as an excuse to delay the establishment of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state. About three million Palestinians live in the occupied West Bank under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority, the Fatah-controlled government body, exercising limited control in population centres.
The presence of Israeli settlements and the accompanying infrastructure, such as settler-only roads and military checkpoints, restricts the movement of Palestinians, thus reducing employment opportunities and hindering trade and commerce.
