Footage shows moment Israeli settler kills renowned Palestinian activist

Israeli rights monitor B'Tselem has released footage capturing the moment Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen was shot dead by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank last month.

Yinon Levi, a notorious settler activist formerly under US sanctions, was arrested in connection with the 28 July killing but was later released.

The video, which B'Tselem said was recorded by Hathaleeen, shows Levin waving a handgun while confronting a group of Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta village of Um al-Khair. He then aims and shoots Hathaleen, who collapses before the clip cuts out.

Hathaleen was a prominent human rights activist and came to global attention earlier this year after working on the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

The film documents the efforts by Masafer Yatta residents to prevent Israeli forces displacing them from their land.

Yinon Levi was among a number of settler extremists sanctioned by the US, EU and UK in 2024 for targeting Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.

He previously established an illegal outpost near the Palestinian community of Khirbet Zanutah in the South Hebron Hills before helping to expel its residents in 2023.

The Trump administration removed the sanctions immediately after taking office.

The confrontation took place after Levi and a group of settlers invaded the village with an excavator, which can be seen in the footage recorded by Hathaleen.

The settlers had been excavating land close to Um al-Khair's water and electricity infrastructure, before driving the heavy machinery towards its olive grove where they were challenged by residents, B'Tselem said.

Police released Levi from custody after the killing, claiming there was insufficient evidence to bring charges and accepting his claim that he acted in self-defence.

Four days after his release, he was filmed trespassing on the residents' land alongside another armed settler.

"In Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinians are completely exposed to Israeli violence: stripped from their human rights, left with no protection," B'Tselem wrote in a post on X.

 "Awdah’s killing is yet another horrifing example of how the world stands by while Israelis, soldiers or civilians, kill Palestinians in broad daylight, knowing they will have full impunity."

Hathaleen's family members held his funeral on 7 August, more than a week after his killing after Israeli authorities refused to release his body.

Settler violence in the occupied West Bank has soared under the current far-right Israeli government, which has overseen the displacement of thousands of civilians and reacted with indifference to pogroms targeting Palestinian villages.

Almost 3,000 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes since the beginning of 2023, according to figures from the UN's humanitarian agency.

The agency documented 740 separate incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the first six months of 2025 alone.