Palestinian ‘No Other Land’ contributor Awdah Hathaleen killed in West Bank

Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and journalist who helped make the Oscar and Berlinale prize-winning documentary No Other Land, has been killed in the southern West Bank.

Israeli settler Yinon Levi has been arrested by Israeli police for questioning, although no charges have been filed against him, according to a report by The Guardian.

The attack was caught on video, which appears to show Levi, who was put under sanctions by the US president, Joe Biden, then removed from the sanctions list by Donald Trump, firing a gun at the time of the killing.

Yuval Abraham, the Israeli co-director of No Other Land, shared a video of the attack on Instagram.

“My dear friend Awdah was slaughtered this evening,” Basel Adra, a Palestinian co-director of No Other Land, wrote on social media. “He was standing in front of the community centre 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.”

Settler and Israeli military violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has been intensifying. The Palestinian Health Ministry has reported that at least 1,009 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank since October 2023.

Filmed from 2019 to 2023, No Other Land follows activist Adra as he documents the destruction of Palestinian houses and villages in the Masafer Yatta region of the West Bank by Israeli military bulldozers. Adra’s efforts to raise awareness gain momentum with the support of Israeli journalist Abraham, with whom he builds a friendship.

It is co-directed by Adra, Abraham, Hamdan Ballal – who was attacked by Israeli settlers and soldiers in his West Bank home earlier this year – and Rachel Szor; producers are Fabien Greenberg and Bard Kjoge Ronning for Antipode Films and Yabayay Media.

The film made its debut at the Berlinale in 2024, winning the Panorama audience award and Berlinale documentary award. It went on to win nearly 70 awards after playing widely on the film festival circuit, culminating in victory at the Academy Awards – the first time a documentary has won an Oscar without a distribution company attached in the US.