Latest news with #Hathleen
Middle East Eye
3 days ago
- Middle East Eye
Palestinian activist who worked on Oscar-winning film 'No Other Land' killed in occupied West Bank
Awdah Hathleen, a Palestinian activist who was part of the crew on the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, was shot dead by an Israeli settler on Monday, the film's co-directors say. Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, one half of the filmmaking duo, shared a video on X late on Monday evening, local time, in the occupied West Bank, showing an infamous Israeli settler brandishing a gun and shooting at Palestinians behind the camera. It was unclear exactly who shot the video, but several Palestinians were in the vicinity. The events appear to have transpired earlier that day in Masafer Yatta, the very village in which No Other Land is set. The settler in the video posted by Abraham was identified as Yinon Levi, who was sanctioned by the US and European Union in 2024 for his violent attacks on Palestinians and their property. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters The Trump administration lifted those Biden-era sanctions earlier this year. Levi has been featured in a number of news outlets documenting the impact of sanctions on Israeli settlers. In the video, he is shown angrily pulling out a handgun as the man filming him repeatedly shouts, "Shoot me! Shoot me!" in English. After Levi starts shooting at targets off-camera, others in the background start screaming inaudibly in Arabic, until one man runs in front of the camera and shouts at the crowd, "For God's sake, get back!" in Arabic, seemingly trying to de-escalate the situation. It is unclear whether the video is related to the killing of Hathleen. Behind Levi is an active bulldozer, a telltale sign of what is likely another Palestinian home demolition by the Israelis, in a bid to make way for further settlement expansion - all of which is illegal under international law. Who was Awdah Hathleen? Friends and coworkers mourned Hathleen on social media, describing him as a devoted father and peace activist. Hathleen had a wife, Hanady, and three children, all under the age of ten. He was an English teacher, a writer, and a footballer who played for the local club in Masafer Yatta. US deports two Palestinians who landed with valid visas for an interfaith mission Read More » Basel Adra, the Palestinian director of No Other Land, shared a photo of himself with Hathleen on X, writing, "My dear friend Awdah was slaughtered this evening. He was standing in front of the community center in his village when a settler fired a bullet that pierced his chest and took his life. This is how Israel erases us - one life at a time." Jewish Voice for Peace, the US-based activist group, said, "To know Awdah Hathleen is to love him". "Awda has always been a pillar amongst his family, his village and the wider international community of activists who had the pleasure to meet Awda," the group said on X. Canadian Rabbi David Mivasair - while condemning remarks by Prime Minister Mark Carney that blamed Hamas for the starvation of Palestinians and Israel's continued war on Gaza - wrote on X that his "friend Awdah Hathleen... has nothing to do with Hamas. It starts with Zionism". Just last month, despite having a valid US visa, Hathleen was detained at San Francisco airport and then deported back to the occupied West Bank. His trip was sponsored by the Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont, California. He and his cousin, Eid Hathleen, were scheduled to speak at churches, synagogues, and other establishments as part of an interfaith humanitarian mission that was supposed to take them from California to Washington, DC, and then Boston. Erin Axelman, co-director of the documentary Israelism, who has seen [Eid] Hathleen speak on numerous occasions and is a supporter of his work, told Middle East Eye that the cousins were 'profoundly important Palestinian peace activists who travelled to the US legally at the invite of progressive Jewish communities, for a speaking tour about peace and justice in Palestine.' 'The Trump administration detained them, and now deported them, solely because they are Palestinian,' Axelman said.
NBC News
08-03-2025
- NBC News
The Oscar went to ‘No Other Land,' but that might not save Masafer Yatta
Each morning, the first thing Alaa Hathleen does is anxiously check his WhatsApp messages with a single question on his mind: 'Who will be homeless today?' Just over two weeks ago, it was his turn. Early on Feb. 18, Hathleen, 25, was still asleep at his family home in the village of Umm Al-Kheir on the outskirts of Masafer Yatta in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when his mother raced into the room, terrified. Israeli soldiers and excavators were outside, she yelled. Less than half an hour later, they were standing outside their home, watching in horror as an excavator tore through the building, crushing its walls to rubble and snapping its metal roof in half. Asked to comment on the incident on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces were unable to provide a response as of Friday afternoon local time. Masafer Yatta's landscape of rolling hills and small hamlets gained renewed international attention when 'No Other Land,' a documentary by Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, and Yuval Abraham, an Israeli investigative journalist, won an Oscar on Sunday. The film highlighted the violence and abuses committed by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians in Masafer Yatta — but Hathleen said he feared it could 'open the gates of hell' for those who lived there, worried that Israeli settlers and forces might increase their attacks in angry retaliation for the film. Hathleen said he believed it was important to highlight the reality Palestinians face in the occupied West Bank, but in the weeks since the documentary was announced as an Academy Award nominee, he said there had been fresh violence in the area, with Amnesty International warning last week that another village nearby was under 'imminent threat of forcible transfer.' Hathleen, a physical therapist and activist, now sleeps in a large tent outside his brother's house with other relatives. They feared rebuilding their home only to have it torn down again by Israeli forces, while the threat of a violent settler attack hangs over him and his family. 'It's so hard, but what should we do?' he said in a phone interview on Thursday. 'This is what they want — to kick us out of our land.' Like Hathleen, Mohammad Hureini, the son of prominent activist Hafez Hureini, who has made headlines for his fight to remain in At-Tuwani in Masafer Yatta, said he was glad the documentary was bringing 'good attention to the situation.' But, Hureini, 20, an activist and university student studying English literature, added: 'It's not enough to stop what Israel is committing.' Violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers and forces has soared since the start of the war in Gaza. According to OCHA, the United Nations' humanitarian aid agency, at least 895 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem between Oct. 7, 2023, and March 4 of this year. So far this year, 89 Palestinians in the territory have been killed, with 17 of them children under the age of 19. Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six Day War, with Israeli settlers building and expanding Jewish settlements there thathave been condemned as illegal under international humanitarian law and counter to U.N. Security Council resolutions, a charge Israel rejects. Masafar Yatta has been a focus of Israeli demolitions since the 1980s, after the Israeli military declared the area a restricted military zone, dubbing it 'Firing Zone 918.' A decadeslong legal battle saw the displacement and return of Palestinian families to the area, but that ended in May 2022, when Israel's High Court of Justice authorized the state to demolish villages in the area and expel its residents. OCHA has called forced evictions resulting from demolitions a 'gross violation of human rights,' while human rights organizations including Israel-based Peace Now and B'Tselem have condemned Israel's mounting destruction of Palestinian homes in the area. 'The Israeli government concocts one excuse after the other to expel Palestinians from their land,' Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, told NBC News over WhatsApp on Thursday. Accepting the award for best documentary at the Oscars, Adra, who co-directed 'No Other Land,' called on the international community to 'take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.' His co-director, Abraham, echoed his calls, urging the world to seek a 'different' way forward: 'a political solution, without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both our people.' Abraham went on to criticize the U.S. government's foreign policies as 'helping to block this path.' Adra and Abraham did not immediately respond to requests for comment from NBC News. Both Hureini and Hathleen expressed fears for the future of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza with the Trump administration's return to power. As one of his first acts in office, President Donald Trump rescinded U.S. sanctions on far-right settlers accused of violence against Palestinians, and more recently, as he looks to force an end to the war in Gaza, threatened the lives of Palestinians if hostages held by Hamas are not released. 'We are so worried about Donald Trump because he doesn't care about the Palestinians,' Hathleen said. 'He just cares about Israel.'
