A Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank has been shot dead by an Israeli settler during a land-leveling operation in the village Duma. Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim explains how the killing of 35-year-old Thamin Dawabsheh is part of a growing pattern.
Published On 13 Aug 202513 Aug 2025
Moscow says Israeli troops did not intervene as settlers attacked a Russian diplomatic vehicle and verbally threatened diplomats.
Moscow has lodged a formal complaint with Israel over an attack by Israeli settlers on a Russian diplomatic vehicle near an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Tuesday that Moscow considered the attack a “gross violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961”, and expressed “bewilderment and disapproval” that the attack “occurred with the connivance of Israeli military personnel”.
According to Zakharova, the vehicle belonging to Russia’s representation to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and bearing diplomatic registration plates was attacked on July 30 near the “illegal Israeli settlement of Giv’at Asaf”, located east of Ramallah and some 20km (12 miles) north of Jerusalem, by a group of settlers.
“The vehicle sustained mechanical damage. The attack was accompanied by verbal threats directed at the Russian diplomats,” the spokeswoman said, adding that Israeli soldiers present “did not even bother to stop the aggressive actions of the attackers”.
According to reports in Russian media, the vehicle came under attack while carrying members of Russia’s diplomatic mission to the PA, who are also accredited with Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
The Russian Embassy in Tel Aviv has sent a demarche letter to Israeli authorities, Zakharova added.
Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyansky, raised the attack on the diplomatic vehicle at a UN Security Council session on Tuesday focused on Israeli captives in Gaza.
Polyansky said the attack on Russia’s vehicle in the occupied West Bank comes at a time when “Israeli authorities have embraced the policy of cleansing and colonising” the Palestinian territory.
“It is ordinary Palestinians and even foreigners who every day become victims of relentless raids by security forces and settler violence,” Russia’s UN representative said.
The “attack on an official vehicle of the Russian Mission to the Palestinian Authority” was carried out “under the lenient eye of the Israeli military”, he said.
“It is clear that a systematic policy of exiling Palestinians – whether from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank – is fraught with new risks and dangers for stability and security in the Middle East and could once again bring the region to the brink of a major war,” he added.
Violent attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank have surged since October 2023, with the UN reporting that almost 650 Palestinians – including 121 children – have been killed in the territory by Israeli forces and settlers between January 1, 2024 and the start of July 2025.
A further 5,269 Palestinians were injured during that period, including 1,029 children. Settler attacks alone accounted for more than 2,200 casualties and cases of damage to property, the UN said.
Hundreds of mourners attended the funeral for 40-year-old Khamis Ayyad, who died from smoke inhalation after an Israeli settler arson attack in the occupied West Bank. His death follows a surge in settler violence this year.
Published On 1 Aug 20251 Aug 2025
The family of a United States citizen who was killed in a settler attack in the occupied West Bank is calling on the administration of President Donald Trump to open its own investigation into the incident.
Relatives of Khamis Ayyad, 40, who died in the town of Silwad, north of Ramallah, on Thursday, confirmed on Friday that he was an American citizen and called for justice in the case.
Ayyad — a father of five and a former Chicago resident — was the second US citizen to be killed in the West Bank in July. Earlier that month, Israeli settlers beat 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet to death in Sinjil, a town that neighbours Silwad.
Standing alongside Ayyad’s relatives, William Asfour, the operations coordinator for the Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), described the killing as “murder”.
“We demand a full investigation from the Department of Justice,” Asfour said. “An American citizen was killed. Where’s the accountability?”
According to Mahmoud Issa, the slain 40-year-old’s cousin, settlers torched cars outside Ayyad’s home around dawn on Thursday.
Ayyad woke up to put out the fire, but then the Israeli army showed up at the scene and started firing tear gas in his direction.
The family believes that Ayyad died from inhaling tear gas and smoke from the burning vehicles.
Settler attacks against Palestinian communities in the West Bank, which US officials have described as “terrorism”, have been escalating for months, particularly since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023.
The Israeli residents of illegal settlements have descended on Palestinian communities, ransacked neighbourhoods and set cars and homes ablaze.
The settlers, protected by the Israeli military, are often armed and fire at will against Palestinians who try to stop them.
The Israeli military has also been intensifying its deadly raids, home demolitions and displacement campaigns in the West Bank.
Just this past month, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, approved a non-binding motion to annex the West Bank.
And on Thursday, two top Israeli ministers, Yariv Levin and Israel Katz, called the present circumstances “a moment of opportunity” to assert “Israeli sovereignty” over the area.
Meanwhile, Israel continues to carry out a brutal assault in Gaza, which rights groups have said amounts to a genocide.
CAIR-Chicago’s Asfour stressed on Friday that Ayyad’s killing is not an isolated incident.
“Another American was killed in the West Bank just weeks ago,” he said, referring to Musallet.
“How many more before the US takes action to protect its citizens abroad? Settlers burn homes, soldiers back them up, and our government sends billions to fund all of this.”
The US Department of State did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment by the time of publication.
Last month, Musallet’s family also urged a US investigation into his killing.
But Washington has resisted calls to probe Israel’s abuses against American citizens, arguing that Israeli authorities are best equipped to investigate their own military forces and settlers.
Mike Huckabee, US ambassador to Israel, called on Israel to “aggressively investigate the murder” of Musallet in July.
“There must be accountability for this criminal and terrorist act,” he wrote in a social media post.
But more than 21 days after the incident, there has been no arrest in the case. Since 2022, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 10 US citizens. None of the cases have resulted in criminal charges.
Ayyad was killed as Israeli forces continue to detain US teenager Mohammed Ibrahim without trial or access to his family.
Mohammed, 16, has been jailed since February, and his family says it has received reports that he is drastically losing weight and suffering from a skin infection.
On Friday, Illinois State Representative Abdelnasser Rashid called Ayyad’s death part of an “ugly pattern of settler colonial violence” in Palestine.
He called for repealing an Illinois state law that penalises boycotts of Israeli firms.
“We need action. Here in Illinois, we have a law that punishes companies that choose to do the right thing by boycotting Israel,” Rashid told reporters.
“This shameful state law helps shield Israel’s violence and brutality from consequences.”
Khamis Ayyad, 40, died of smoke inhalation after settlers set fire to vehicles in town of Silwad, Health Ministry says.
A Palestinian man has been killed after Israeli settlers set fire to vehicles and homes in a town in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says.
The ministry said on Thursday that Khamis Ayyad, 40, died due to smoke inhalation after settlers attacked Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, around dawn. Ayyad and others had been trying to extinguish the fires, local residents said.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the settlers also attacked the nearby villages of Khirbet Abu Falah and Rammun, setting fire to more vehicles.
A relative of Ayyad’s, and a resident of Silwad, said they woke up at 2am (23:00 GMT) to see “flames devouring vehicles across the neighbourhood”.
“The townspeople panicked and rushed to extinguish the fires engulfing the cars and buildings,” they said, explaining that Ayyad had been trying to put out a fire burning his brother’s car.
Ayyad’s death comes amid burgeoning Israeli settler and military violence across the West Bank in tandem with Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.
Settlers have been attacking Palestinians and their property with impunity, backed by the Israeli army.
Earlier this week, Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian from Masafer Yatta, the community whose resistance to Israeli settler violence was documented in the Oscar-winning film No Other Land, with which he helped, was killed by an Israeli settler.
The suspect, identified as Yinon Levi, was placed under house arrest on Tuesday after a Magistrate Court in Jerusalem declined to keep him in custody.
According to the latest data from the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA), at least 159 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank between January 1 and July 21 of this year.
Hundreds of Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have also been reported so far in 2025, including at least 27 incidents that resulted in casualties, property damage, or both, between July 15 and 21, OCHA said.
Observers have warned that the uptick in Israeli violence aims to forcibly displace Palestinians and pave the way for Israel to formally annex the territory, as tens of thousands have been forced out of their homes in recent months across the West Bank.
Earlier this month, the Israeli parliament – the Knesset – overwhelmingly voted in favour of a symbolic motion calling for Israel to annex the West Bank.
On Thursday, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Defence Minister Israel Katz said in a joint statement that “there is a moment of opportunity that must not be missed” to exert Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, according to a Times of Israel report.
“Ministers Katz and Levin have been working for many years to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria,” the statement said, using a term used by Israeli settlers and their supporters to refer to the occupied Palestinian territory.
Back in Silwad, Raafat Hussein Hamed, a resident whose house was torched in Thursday’s attack, said that the settlers “burned whatever they could and then ran away”.
Hamed told the AFP news agency that the attackers “come from an outpost”, referring to an Israeli settlement that, in addition to violating international law, is also illegal under Israeli law.
The Israeli military told AFP that “several suspects … set fire to property and vehicles in the Silwad area”, but forces dispatched to the scene were unable to identify them. It added that Israeli police had launched an investigation.
Awdah Hathaleen a Palestinian community leader who was a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” died Monday after an Israeli settler allegedly shot him to death in the occupied West Bank.
“No Other Land” filmmaker and subject Yuval Abraham announced his colleague’s death Monday, writing on X (formerly Twitter), “[Hathaleen] just died. Murdered.” Two hours prior, Abraham shared video of the confrontation that led to Hathaleen’s death. In the video, the settler in a dark shirt can be seen shoving people in a group, pulling out and pointing his pistol in their direction. The video shows him firing at people off-screen.
In the caption of his video, Abraham writes that the settler “just shot” Hathaleen in the lungs and identified the shooter as Yinon Levi. Levi was among the 13 hard-line Israeli settlers targeted last year by international sanctions for their alleged attacks and harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank. President Trump lifted U.S. sanctions against the Israelis in January.
“This is him in the video firing like crazy,” Abraham tweeted.
The incident occurred in in the village of Umm al-Khair, in the Masafer Yatta region that was the focus of “No Other Land.” Hathaleen was rushed to a hospital in Israel, where he was pronounced dead, his family confirmed to the New York Times. He was 31.
According to multiple reports, Israeli police said they responded to the scene, detaining and arresting an Israeli citizen. Police did not identify the detainee they took in for questioning, and claimed “terrorists hurled rocks toward” the nearby Israeli settlement of Carmel, according to CNN. Additionally, the Israeli military detained five Palestinians and two foreign tourists for their alleged involvement in Monday’s incident, the BBC reported.
The IDF did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for confirmation on Tuesday.
“No Other Land” filmmaker and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra on Tuesday tweeted video showing the attack from another angle. In this video, Levi is seen with the pistol in his right hand, smacking a person in front of him. The clip also sees Levi raising his right arm and firing off-screen. Adra says Levi “fires the bullet that took” Hathaleen’s life, adding in his caption that “the apartheid court decided to release him to house arrest.”
On Monday, Adra tweeted he was in disbelief about his friend’s death: “My dear friend Adwah was slaughtered this evening. He was standing in front of the community center in his village where a settler fired a bullet that pierced his chest and took his life. This is how Israel erases us — one life at a time.”
On Instagram, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence described Hathaleen as a well-known community figure: “an activist, artist, and teacher in the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta.” The activist group reminded Instagram followers that last month Hathaleen and another Palestinian man were denied entry, detained overnight and deported back to the West Bank when they arrived at the San Francisco International Airport.
“So many in our community knew Awdah, and gained so much by learning from him, and being his friend,” the organization said, concluding its statement with a call to action. “May Awdah’s memory be a revolution. May we see justice for Awdah, and justice for all Palestinians, within our lifetime.”
Earlier this year, Israeli settlers brutalized another member of the Oscar-winning “No Other Land” team. In March, Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was beat in his head and stomach by settlers in the village of Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area. Palestinian residents said the settlers, some wearing masks, some carrying guns and some wearing military uniforms, attacked as residents were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to the Associated Press. Israeli military and police forces detained the filmmaker on suspicion of hurling rocks at IDF and police.
He was released a day later, with bruises on his face and blood on his clothes. As he recalled hearing “the voice of soldiers laughing at me,” his wife said she felt the international attention surrounding “No Other Land’s” Oscar win prompted settlers to “attack us more.” The harrowing documentary , which became the subject of controversy in Miami Beach earlier this year, documents Israel’s demolition of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta and the displacement of their communities in favor of Israeli military training grounds.
Since Israel launched its war against Hamas nearly two years ago, more than 60,000 Palestinians have been killed, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Tuesday. At least 77 were killed over the past 24 hours, most while seeking food.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Witnesses say the Israeli settler arrested in the fatal shooting of Palestinian activist Odeh Hadalin said he was “glad about it.” The shooting happened during a confrontation over an Israeli bulldozer that damaged infrastructure in a Palestinian village.
Published On 29 Jul 202529 Jul 2025
Masafer Yatta, occupied West Bank – Awdah Hathaleen was standing by a fence in the Umm al-Kheir community centre when he was shot in the chest by an Israeli settler on Monday.
The beloved 31-year-old activist and father of three fell to the ground as people rushed over to try to help him. Then an ambulance came out of the nearby illegal settlement of Carmel and took him away.
Israeli authorities have refused to release his body for burial, simply telling his family on Monday night that he had died, depriving them of the closure of laying him to rest immediately, as Islam dictates.
Under the scorching sun of the South Hebron Hills, the people of Umm al-Kheir were joined by anti-occupation activists from all over the world – gathered in silence to mourn Awdah, who was a key figure in non-violent resistance against settler violence in Masafer Yatta.
They came together in the same yard where Awdah was standing when he was shot to death by Israeli settler Yinon Levi, who later said, “I’m glad I did it,” according to witnesses.
Rocks had been laid in a circle around Awdah’s blood on the ground, mourners stopping there as if paying their respects.
Around the circle, the elders sat in silence, waiting for news that didn’t arrive on whether Awdah’s body would be returned by the Israeli army.
There is a feeling of shock that Awdah, out of all people, was the one murdered in cold blood, his cousin Eid Hathaleen, 41, told Al Jazeera about his “truly beloved” relative.
“There was [nobody] who contributed as much to the community in Umm al-Kheir as Awdah,” Alaa Hathaleen, 26, Awdah’s cousin and brother-in-law, said.
“I can’t believe that tomorrow I will wake up and Awdah won’t be here.”
Awdah had three children – five-year-old Watan, four-year-old Muhammad, and seven-month-old Kinan – and he loved them above everything else in the world, several of his friends and relatives told Al Jazeera.
“He was a great father,” Alaa said. “The children would go to him more than to their mother.”
Awdah got married in 2019, Jewish Italian activist Micol Hassan told Al Jazeera over the phone. “His wedding was a beautiful occasion in 2019. We organised cars that came from all over Palestine [for it].
“He loved his children so much,” she continued. “Every time he put them to sleep, they cried and asked where their daddy was.”
Hassan, who has been barred from returning to the occupied West Bank by Israeli authorities, also fondly recalled how much Awdah loved coffee and how she would bring him packs of Italian coffee whenever she was able to get to Umm al-Kheir.
Awdah also loved football, playing it every chance he got, even though Umm al-Kheir’s facilities are badly degraded and all the villagers have is a paved yard with dilapidated goalposts.
In fact, Awdah’s last breaths were on that same battered football pitch, possibly the one place in the village where he spent the most time.
No matter how bad settler attacks were, Alaa said, Awdah would sit down with him and discuss their projections and hopes for his favourite team, Spanish side Real Madrid.
“His love for Real Madrid ran in his veins,” Alaa added. “Maybe if they knew how much he loved them, Real Madrid would speak about Masafer Yatta.”
Awdah has been an activist since he was 17 years old, working to stop the Israeli attempts to expel the villagers of Masafer Yatta from their homes and lands.
He hosted countless visiting activists who came to the occupied West Bank to support Palestinian activists and villagers, helping them understand the situation on the ground and embracing their presence with his trademark hospitality.
Perhaps his most famous such collaboration was his work with Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, who co-directed No Other Land, a documentary film that won an Oscar award this year.
Everyone who spoke to Al Jazeera remembers him as the kindest person, with a brave, peaceful heart.
He was “tayyeb, salim”, they said, using the Arabic words for “kind” and “peaceful”.
Awdah would tell anyone who came to Umm al-Kheir that he didn’t choose to be an activist; it just happened, Hassan told Al Jazeera, adding that he welcomed everyone, regardless of faith or citizenship.
“He was a radical humanist,” she said.
“He wanted the occupation to end without suffering,” said Alaa, adding that Awdah always thought about what the future would bring for his children and others.
He chose to become an English teacher because of that, Eid told Al Jazeera. He wanted the village children to grow up educated and able to tell the world their story in English, so they could reach more people.
“He taught all his students to love and welcome everyone regardless of their faith and origin,” said Eid.
A group of his students – he taught English from grades one through nine in the local school – huddled together in the community centre yard among the mourners, remembering their teacher.
“He would always try to make classes fun,” said Mosab, nine years old.
“He made us laugh,” added his classmate Mohammed, 11.
Umm al-Kheir is one of more than 30 villages and hamlets in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a region that, more than any, has seen the consequences of the expansion of settlements and violence linked to it.
The incident that led up to Awdah’s killing began the day before, recounted activist Mattan Berner-Kadish, who had been in Umm al-Kheir providing protective presence to the Palestinian community.
A digger was to be delivered to the illegal settlement, and the villagers had agreed to coordinate the passage of the machinery with the settlers, to prevent any damage to village infrastructure.
But the settler driving the machinery ran over a water pipe and began rolling over other infrastructure, threatening to roll into the town and cause more damage.
When villagers gathered to try to stop the machinery, the operator used the digger’s claw to hit one of them in the head, dropping him to the ground, semi-conscious.
Awdah was 10-15 metres (30-50 feet) away from the altercation, standing in the community centre yard, looking on.
In the chaos, gunshots started ringing out, and Berner-Kadish saw Yinon Levi shooting at people. Amid the screams and panic, he realised that Awdah had been shot.
An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta. Residents identified Yinon Levi, sanctioned by the EU and US, as the shooter. This is him in the video firing like crazy. pic.twitter.com/xH1Uo6L1wN
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) July 28, 2025
He tried to calm Levi down, telling him that he had directly shot someone and likely killed him. To which Levi responded: “I’m glad I did it.”
Berner-Kadish also tried to talk to the Israeli soldiers who arrived on the scene, only to hear from three of them that they wished they had been the ones to shoot Awdah.
Following the murder, the Israeli army arrested five men from the Hathaleen family. On Tuesday, the Israeli army closed the area around Umm al-Kheir, restricting any access to it.
Also on Tuesday, Levi was released to house arrest by Israeli courts, which charged him with negligent homicide.
Levi was sanctioned by Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States for violent attacks on Palestinians.
The five Hathaleen men arrested after Awdah was killed are still in Israeli custody, Alaa told Al Jazeera.
Weeping, he fretted: “What if [the Israelis] return [Awdah’s] body and they can’t pay their last tribute to them?”
Odeh Hadalin, an activist, football player and participant in the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, has been shot in the chest and killed by an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank. The suspect, Yinon Levi, has been under sanctions by the EU and the US.
Published On 29 Jul 202529 Jul 2025
Top church leaders and diplomats have called on Israeli settlers to be held accountable during a visit to the predominantly Christian town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, after settlers intensified attacks on the area in recent weeks.
Representatives from more than 20 countries including the United Kingdom, Russia, China, Japan, Jordan, and the European Union, were among the delegates who visited the village in the West Bank on Monday.
Speaking in Taybeh, Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa denounced an incident last week when settlers set fires near the community’s church.
They said that Israeli authorities failed to respond to emergency calls for help from the Palestinian community.
In a separate statement, the patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem demanded an investigation into the incident and called for the settlers to be held accountable by the Israeli authorities, “who facilitate and enable their presence around Taybeh”.
The church leaders also said that settlers had brought their cattle to graze on Palestinian lands in the area, set fire to several homes last month, and put up a sign reading “there is no future for you here”.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Doha, said church leaders have been calling this a “systemic and targeted attack” against Christians.
“About 50,000 of them live in the occupied West Bank, a small but very proud minority,” Ibrahim said. “They also consider themselves under attack, not just because they’re Christians but because they’re Palestinians.”
The church has been trying for years to “enhance the steadfastness of the Christian community in Palestine”, Ibrahim said.
“We’ve been seeing how Israeli settlers have been pushing them out of their lands, out of their homes.”
Settlers, who are often armed, are backed by Israeli army soldiers and regularly carry out attacks against Palestinians, their lands, and property. Several rights groups have documented repeated instances where Israeli settlers in the West Bank ransack Palestinian neighbourhoods and towns, burning homes and vehicles.
Assaults have grown in scale and intensity since Israel’s brutal war on Gaza began in October 2023. These assaults also include large-scale incursions by Israeli forces into Palestinian towns and cities across the West Bank that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands.
Pizzaballa, the top Catholic cleric in Jerusalem, said he believed the West Bank was becoming a lawless area.
“The only law [in the West Bank] is that of power, of those who have the force, not the law. We must work for the law to return to this part of the country, so anyone can appeal to the law to enforce their rights,” Pizzaballa told reporters.
He and Theophilos prayed together at the Church of St George, whose religious site dates back centuries, adjacent to the area where settlers ignited the fires.
The visit comes as Palestinians report a new surge of settler violence.
On Monday, Israeli settlers and soldiers launched several more attacks across the West Bank, including in Bethlehem, where settlers uprooted hundreds of olive trees in al-Maniya village, southeast of the city, and Israeli authorities demolished a four-storey residential building.
The head of the al-Maniya village council, Zayed Kawazba, told Wafa news agency that a group of settlers stormed al-Qarn in the centre of al-Maniya, set up four tents and uprooted approximately 1,500 olive saplings belonging to families from the al-Motawer and Jabarin clans.
A day earlier, hundreds descended on the village of Al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, south of Taybeh, for the funeral of two young men killed during a settler attack on Friday.
The occupied West Bank is home to more than three million Palestinians who live under harsh Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority governing in limited areas separated from each other by a myriad of Israeli checkpoints.
Israel has so far built more than 100 settlements across the West Bank, which are home to about 500,000 settlers who live illegally on private Palestinian land.
Israeli settlers and soldiers launched deadly raids across the occupied West Bank, killing four Palestinians.
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