‘A Life That Is Not a Life’ | Joseph Kaplan Weinger

I used to be staying with my buddy Awdah Hathaleen within the village of Umm al-Khair early this July when our dialog took an unusually somber flip. I had identified Awdah—a thirty-one-year-old activist, organizer, and instructor—since February 2024, after I joined the Palestinian-led “protective presence” efforts he helped set up with the Middle for Jewish Nonviolence, a nonprofit that mobilizes Jews from throughout the diaspora to withstand Israel’s occupation of the West Financial institution. He turned a necessary supply and a detailed buddy as I carried out analysis on the connection between the settler motion and the Israeli state for my doctorate in sociology. Over the 9 months I spent residing at his visitor home, we shared meals and stayed up late speaking throughout all-night guard shifts; I received to know his spouse, Hanadi, and their three youngsters, who’re seven months, two years, and 4 years outdated.

Regardless of the tough realities that formed each day life in Umm al-Khair, Awdah remained heat and lighthearted, a jokester who liked playful sparring, particularly over my longtime vegetarianism. Early in our acquaintance he had agreed to sit down for a proper interview for my analysis, however we didn’t discover the time till July 5, my final day residing in Umm al-Khair. I knew he had a deep religion within the village and its individuals, so I used to be bowled over when, in the course of the interview, he seemed instantly at me and stated, “There is no future here.”

Since Hamas’s assaults on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the beginning of Israel’s assault on Gaza, now broadly deemed a genocide by rights teams in Palestine, Israel, and overseas, situations in Masafer Yatta—the area of the West Financial institution that features Umm al-Khair—have deteriorated alarmingly. Settler violence, propped up by the defensive assist of the Israeli military, had been intensifying within the West Financial institution for years. However over the previous twenty-three months, the distinctions between settlers and troopers have collapsed. A lot of the conscripts and commanders who as soon as garrisoned the settlements have been redeployed to Gaza and Lebanon, leaving of their place native settlers who serve within the navy reserves. Described by Palestinians within the space as junūd-mustawtinīn (“settler-soldiers”), these armed, masked, and uniformed petty sovereigns have confirmed much more aggressive than their predecessors, requiring basically no pretense to make arrests, hurl tear gasoline and stun grenades, or open hearth. Israelis have killed 987 Palestinians within the West Financial institution since October 7, the overwhelming majority by reside ammunition.

On this interval, settler violence has forcibly displaced forty agrarian Palestinian villages and ushered in essentially the most speedy enlargement of outposts ever. Whereas settlements require authorization from the state to be established, outposts are technically unlawful even below Israeli regulation. However, the state nonetheless gives fundamental infrastructure for outposts, in addition to the troopers to protect them. In the course of the earlier development increase, from 2001 to 2003, settlers broke floor on forty-five outposts. Roughly 107 have been based within the final twenty-three months. Consequently, a whole bunch of 1000’s of Palestinians—not solely on land below Israeli management (“Area C”) but in addition in components of the area collectively administered between the Palestinian Authority and Israel (“Area B”)—are subjected to additional expulsion, invasion, razing of crops, arson, checkpoints, and reside rounds. Two days after October 7, Israel’s Minister of Nationwide Safety, Itamar Ben-Gvir, directed the Firearms Licensing Division to radically loosen up its requirements, a call that flooded the West Financial institution with semiautomatic pistols and assault rifles. Armed Israeli civilians have organized militias to terrorize Palestinians into flight.

Dealing with these escalations throughout his dwelling, Awdah got here to fret that Umm al-Khair was not secure for his household. Over time lots of the village’s males had given up shepherding, which had turn out to be too harmful and costly as settlers encroached on grazing lands or, worse, kidnapped or killed flocks of sheep. In consequence, they started working throughout the Inexperienced Line as fruit pickers or development employees. No sooner was the village’s coerced transition from shepherding to wage labor full than, after October 7, every Palestinian man from the village—like most throughout the West Financial institution—had his entry allow for employment in Israel revoked. This reduce off the final dependable supply of revenue for Umm al-Khair.

For over a decade Awdah served informally because the village’s “connector,” welcoming guests and activists from the West who needed to assist fight Israel’s violent occupation. He took it upon himself to seek out us beds to sleep in, and I do know from private expertise that he was liable to overfeed his guests. Above all he needed to make sure that his three youngsters grew up with extra security and freedom than he had. He labored towards this purpose with dedication. But in moments of candor, he admitted how exhausting it was to maintain up his persistence. “We are really tired from all of this,” Awdah informed me throughout our dialog in July. “We are living a life that is not a life anymore.… There is no human in the world ready to live their life in a situation like this, [who] will accept it. Because it is crazy, it is not human.”

Twenty-three days later Awdah was killed in broad daylight. Eyewitness testimony and a number of movies taken on the scene appear to depart little doubt that the shooter was a settler named Yinon Levy, who’s already below worldwide sanctions for collaborating in violent assaults on Palestinian communities. Awdah lived an distinctive lifetime of conviction and dignity. However his dying was distinctive solely as a result of his killing’s intensive documentation and his acclaim as an activist—together with for consulting on the Oscar-winning documentary No Different Land—impressed widespread protection within the worldwide press. Most Palestinians who die on account of Israel’s management won’t ever be mourned as broadly. His killing is simply the newest instance of the settler impunity that has price so many Palestinians their lives—an impunity borne of the alliance, now nearer than ever, between the settlement motion and the state.

Umm al-Khair is lower than ten miles from Hebron. Its Palestinian Bedouin founders, displaced from the Arad desert throughout the Nakba of 1948, purchased the land for 13 camels from a Palestinian Arab within the metropolis of Yatta. The village’s land tenure paperwork theoretically assure non-public property rights, together with safety towards expropriation, however they went unheeded when the group got here below Israeli navy occupation in 1967. 13 years later, Israeli troopers confiscated practically half the village’s land to ascertain a base instantly abutting Umm al-Khair. They referred to as it Carmel.

In 1981, like many settlements throughout this era, Carmel transitioned from navy to civilian standing. Rapidly Umm al-Khair’s residents discovered their entry to conventional grazing lands severely diminished and their mobility throughout the world curtailed. After 1995, when the Oslo II Accord positioned 60 % of the West Financial institution—together with Umm al-Khair—below full Israeli management as Space C, the state ratcheted up its use of bureaucratic euphemisms like “survey” or “state” land to grab increasingly Palestinian territory within the area. Now all however two buildings in Umm al-Khair carry demolition orders for having been constructed with out a allow; many have already been diminished to rubble. These nonetheless standing are makeshift tin buildings susceptible to the weather and regular decay.

Subsequent door Carmel has paved roads, connection to Israeli electrical energy and water sources, and durable houses. Its 632 residents take pleasure in Israeli citizenship and reside in a big residential bloc adjoining to a set of commercial rooster coops. Each are fenced in. The settlement is illegitimate below worldwide humanitarian and human rights regulation, however that has not prevented it from increasing steadily, particularly within the months since October 7. One morning in March 2024 I watched as preteen settler shepherds invaded Umm al-Khair’s central valley, which the Israeli Civil Administration then seized as “state land” the identical day. Almost a 12 months later I filmed as Carmel residents joined officers from the Har Hebron Regional Council to plant a brand new olive grove presided over by a pole bearing the Israeli flag and surveillance cameras. The sphere borders Awdah’s brother Salim’s dwelling and the village group middle. Carmel has designated this land for a brand new neighborhood that will not be contiguous with the remainder of the settlement, and if development continues as deliberate, Salim and 200 different Palestinians will probably be sandwiched between the prevailing settler neighborhood and the brand new one.

Awdah was born and raised inside the hierarchies of the occupation. He witnessed the village’s first dwelling demolitions at age 13. As a teenage shepherd he suffered quite a few settler assaults and arbitrary navy detentions. After finishing highschool, he determined to check English at Hebron College as a result of he hoped to show the language. As soon as he realized how a lot energy the US and Europe may wield to finish the distress of the Palestinian individuals, he informed me, he needed the youth of Umm al-Khair to have the ability to share what they’d skilled with listeners and readers overseas.  

Awdah taught for 5 years on the native Al-Saray‘a Secondary School, built and hosted a network of thousands of activists in Umm al-Khair, and reported about life there. In late June and early July 2024 an especially violent sequence of settler assaults and home demolitions left nearly forty of the village’s inhabitants homeless and injured a number of others, together with Awdah’s aged mom, Umm Salim. “Since the attacks, my son has started stuttering,” he wrote final summer season for the journal +972. “The doctor told us that the best treatment…is a safe environment. But this is what we cannot guarantee for our children: in Umm al-Khair, no one is in a safe place.”

July 28, 2025 started like most up-to-date days within the village. An Israeli excavator rumbled in to clear former grazing land for Carmel’s use. Awdah noticed the brand new development with misery, not least as a result of he acknowledged the person directing the work, and at instances driving the excavator, because the thirty-two-year-old settler Yinon Levy, the founding father of an unlawful agricultural outpost referred to as Meitarim Farm.

Levy has a repute in Masafer Yatta for violent assaults on Palestinians, most notably throughout the everlasting displacement, within the weeks after October 7, of the residents of Zanuta village thirty minutes southwest of Umm al-Khair. A authorized grievance filed on behalf of the village’s residents alleges that, as +972 summarized it, Levy “headed a group of settlers who, accompanied by two soldiers, came to the village on October 12, beat village residents,” and “threatened to kill them.” Then, the petition alleges, he personally demolished their houses, bulldozed the village faculty, and destroyed crops. For such “serious and widespread human rights violations,” because the Council of the European Union wrote final 12 months, he was positioned on the no-travel or belongings freeze lists of the UK, France, Canada, Japan, Australia, the EU, and the US (till President Trump eliminated him in January).

Awdah, preemptively involved about what Levy would possibly do on the grounds of Umm al-Khair, began mobilizing protecting presence activists. He despatched reside updates and photographs to his WhatsApp broadcast checklist, which I used to be on:

11:21 AM

The settlers excavator is behind Salim home as we anticipated,  it appears they’ll work there , they introduced an engineer to place indicators on the land

Will see what’s going to occur

4 hours after the primary replace, Awdah despatched a extra impassioned plea:

3:08 PM

URGENT CALL

the settlers are working behind our homes and the worst that they tried to chop the principle water pipe for the group,  they’ll construct caravans .we want everybody who could make one thing to behave , if you happen to can attain individuals just like the congress , courts , no matter, please do every thing,  in the event that they reduce the pipe the group right here will actually will probably be with none drop of water

This is able to be Awdah’s final message.

On the finish of the workday, fairly than return to Carmel by way of the paved street bisecting Umm al-Khair, Levy’s worker drove the armored excavator by non-public village land. Levy himself accompanied on foot. The heavy machine tore up the bottom, crushing crops, timber, and fencing, earlier than ramming into Awdah’s cousin Ahmad, knocking him unconscious and severely injuring his shoulder. Then it arrived on the paved street, the place a dozen villagers gathered in entrance of Levy and demanded he go away the village. Different members of the Hathaleen household, together with girls and kids, protested from a couple of yards away.

In a broadly shared video, Levy then confronts the gang of Palestinians from exterior the excavator, yelling at them, shoving them, brandishing his gun, and, inside seconds, firing two photographs. Awdah was not amongst these near Levy; he stood filming the scene over 100 ft away. Footage launched days later—the ultimate video that Awdah captured on his cellphone—exhibits Levy pointing his gun instantly at Awdah and firing. Immediately, the digital camera drops to the bottom as Awdah is heard grunting. He bled out beside his two-year-old son.

Awdah misplaced his pulse inside minutes, activists who handled him informed me. His family members carried him to Carmel’s gate and pleaded for medical consideration, however by then he was possible lifeless. An Israeli Magen David Adom ambulance arrived in Carmel earlier than a Palestinian Purple Crescent ambulance may arrive from Yatta, and presumably solely due to the gravity of his situation was he introduced over the Inexperienced Line to Soroka Medical Middle in Beersheba, the place he was pronounced lifeless.

After the ambulance whisked Awdah’s physique away, some two dozen Israeli troopers arrived. They cordoned off the group and, at Levy’s path, arrested six Hathaleen males. The lads have been blindfolded, zip-tied at their palms and ankles, and brought to the close by Susiya navy base. A settler group wrote on Fb that night that Levy had survived an “attempted lynching in broad daylight.”

One in all Awdah’s cousins later informed me that the troopers dumped them on the concrete floor, the place they lay for hours. At one level a bunch of troopers introduced in a canine and commanded it to assault the restrained males, however the canine refused. Patriotic Israeli music blasted from a speaker, together with “Am Yisrael Chai”(“The nation of Israel lives”), adopted by Quranic verses. Because the music continued, Awdah’s cousin recounted, the troopers began up a chant in Hebrew: “Awdah met, Awdah met” (“Awdah’s dead, Awdah’s dead”). Not one of the prisoners had heard till then that Awdah had been killed. It took eleven days for all six to be freed.

On the scene, police additionally arrested Levy himself for alleged murder. However he spent lower than twenty-four hours in custody earlier than a decide launched him on home arrest. 4 days later the decide refused to resume the order on the grounds that the bullet was by no means positioned and he or she “did not find that the danger is of such magnitude that it justifies continued house arrest.” Levy returned to his outpost with no pending authorized costs. His lawyer insists each that Levy acted in self-defense and that, since no bullet was discovered, no proof instantly hyperlinks Levy’s gunshot to Awdah’s dying. Haaretz and The Instances of Israel have each reported that Mattan Berner-Kadish, an American Israeli protecting presence activist who was on the scene that day, confronted Levy instantly after the taking pictures. “You just killed someone,” Berner-Kadish stated he informed him. “And I’m happy about it,” Levy reportedly replied.

I arrived at Umm al-Khair a couple of hours later, thirty minutes after Awdah’s household had realized that he had not survived. Most males I noticed have been weeping, too pained to talk. Tariq Hathaleen, one other of Awdah’s cousins, cried into my ear, “They have taken everything from me.”

On July 29, the following morning, the village erected mourning tents for the ‘azza ritual, where visitors come to offer condolences to the family of the deceased. The Israeli Civil Administration phoned Awdah’s brother Khalil, the top of the village council, and demanded he dismantle the tents. If he refused, they warned, the military would achieve this by power. Additionally they demanded the household limit the entry of journalists and overseas guests—by which they meant left-wing activists, a few of whom are Jewish Israelis. Defiant, the household determined to maintain the tent up and welcome all calls. I, together with different activists, hid in houses across the village.

Within the late morning, Israeli troopers in balaclavas arrived and blocked journalists and mourners from coming into Umm al-Khair. By afternoon extra masked troopers had joined them, declared the village a “closed military zone,” and began clearing individuals from the tent. Activists like me who had come to pay condolences have been bodily dragged to our vehicles; troopers fired stun grenades at us and arrested two members of our group.

Over the following 4 nights Israeli troopers raided the village and arrested a mixed 13 extra Hathaleen boys and males, accusing them of collaborating in an assault towards Levy, regardless that many weren’t current on the incident. The Israeli police and navy, in the meantime, continued to withhold Awdah’s physique—of which they’d taken custody to conduct an post-mortem—and, following a typical and longstanding apply, put stringent situations on its launch. He would, they insisted, have to be buried exterior Umm al-Khair in a ceremony capped at fifteen attendees, at a late-night hour determined by the navy; the household would additionally need to conform to a ban on utilizing amplification gear and submit a deposit to make sure that all situations have been met.  

The Hathaleen household refused. “Awdah was not a criminal, and he will not be buried like one,” Khalil informed me. Three days following his dying, greater than seventy girls and women from the village declared a starvation strike, demanding each the return of Awdah’s physique and that his relations being held at Ofer navy jail be freed. All of the whereas settlers continued their encroachment; barely every week later, they fractured the pipe supplying water to the southern half of the village, leaving residents with out operating water.

It took eight days and a petition to the Israeli Supreme Courtroom for the state to launch Awdah’s physique after the post-mortem. Even after the navy agreed to a funeral with out constraints on attendees, it blockaded the village and prevented a whole bunch of mourners, myself included, from attending. As I stood exterior with different activists on the morning of August 7, troopers introduced that they supposed to arrest us for putatively violating the closed navy zone, which forbade civilians from coming into the street resulting in the village.

Per week after Awdah’s dying, I sat once more together with his brothers and cousins within the males’s mourning tent. From lower than 200 ft away we may hear the sounds of excavation—hydraulic hisses, rocks clanking towards a metal bucket, back-up beeps. The household seemed exterior and noticed Yinon Levy. He had returned to survey the land and resume his earthworks.

It appears his arduous work has paid off. In the midst of the evening on August 27, settlers moved 4 caravans to the plot Levy had leveled. “Now we are imprisoned by the settlers,” Tariq Hathaleen informed me. “They can attack us from any direction.” Extra caravans are anticipated within the coming weeks, bringing with them households of settlers to reside on the confiscated lands of Umm al-Khair.