Family and friends are reeling after an Israeli settler shot and killed Palestinian activist Odeh Muhammad Hadalin, an athlete, teacher and father of three young children. Hadalin helped produce the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, which follows Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta as they struggle to stay on their land amid violent attacks by Jewish settlers. Hadalin’s cousin Alaa calls him an exceptionally “humane” and “peaceful” person in an interview with +972 Magazine and Local Call reporter Oren Ziv, who joins us from Tel Aviv.
In January, the Trump administration lifted Biden-era sanctions on Hadalin’s alleged killer, Yinon Levi, who has been released on house arrest. Meanwhile, multiple members of Hadalin’s family are still imprisoned and awaiting hearings in Israel’s military court after they were arrested by Israeli soldiers following the shooting. Ziv describes how Israeli soldiers also conducted a raid on a mourning party days after Hadalin died of his injuries. “They forced us out. And even in the entrance to the village, they started to throw stun grenades,” Ziv says. “It’s important to say it’s not only an attack on the family, on his friends. It’s an attempt to prevent us, the journalists, [from] investigating the case.”
