Israeli forces assault MK while storming memorial event for slain Palestinian activist

Israeli border police assaulted a Knesset member on Tuesday while storming a memorial event for a slain Palestinian activist in the occupied West Bank — a move described as showing Israeli forces' "clear descent into fascism".

The attack took place in Umm al-Khair at a memorial gathering for Awda Hathaleen, who was killed in 2025.

Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, who was assaulted by border police, told The New Arab that police turned up shortly after the beginning of the event and demanded its closure within five minutes.

"We began to speak to the commander of the force, and after a while he began to shout at me and then pushed me to the ground with another police officer," Cassif said.

Video of the incident shared by Hadash, a left-wing Jewish-Palestinian coalition, shows Cassif being violently shoved to the ground by two border police at the event.

"That's the routine, that's the routine of the occupation," he said, adding, "What I experienced is nothing in comparison to the lives of the Palestinians under the apartheid and occupation regime."

Cassif said that he filed a report with the police, but has no expectations that the incident will be investigated.

In a statement on X, Hadash said that the assault "clearly reflects the occupation forces' complete descent into fascism."

"Instead of protecting the residents of Umm al-Khair and bringing to justice the criminals and killers who sit on the fences surrounding their homes, the state persecutes those who expose these injustices and protest against them."

According to Nadav Weiman, Executive Director of Breaking the Silence, an anti-occupation group made up of former Israeli soldiers, Israeli border police "issued a closed military zone order" over the memorial.

"The order applies only to the area of the community centre where the memorial is being held, not to the illegal outpost behind us, not to the violent settlers around us," he said.

"Only we, the peace activists who came here to commemorate Awdah, are not allowed to be here."

The event gathered dozens of peace activists, including a close friend of Hathaleen and co-director of Oscar-winning documentary 'No Other Land', Basel Adra.

Adra told attendees at the memorial that he "believed that [the] camera is stronger than violence, and telling the truth was one of the most powerful forms of resistance".

Hathaleen, a peace activist from Umm al-Kheir in the Masafer Yatta area, was killed in July 2025 by Israeli settler Yinon Levi, who, since the killing, has continued to terrorise Palestinians in the area, according to Cassif.

Having been featured in 'No Other Land', Hathaleen's killing grabbed international attention as an example of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, which has increased over the past year.

According to conflict monitor ACLED, June saw a record-breaking 460 settler-related incidents.

The chilling trend is set to continue into July, with the organisation having already recorded 360 incidents between 1 and 24 July.