TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — An Israeli settler accused of killing a prominent Palestinian activist during a confrontation captured on video in the occupied West Bank will be released from house arrest, an Israeli court ruled Friday.
The video shot by a Palestinian witness shows Yinon Levi brandishing a pistol and tussling with a group of unarmed Palestinians. He can be seen firing two shots, but the video does not show where the bullets hit.
Witnesses said one of the shots killed Awdah Hathaleen, an English teacher and father of three, who was uninvolved and was standing nearby.
The Israeli military is still holding Hathaleen’s body and says it will only be returned if the family agrees to bury him in a nearby city. It said the measure was being taken to “prevent public disorder.”
The confrontation occurred on Monday in the village of Umm al-Khair, in an area of the West Bank featured in “No Other Land,” an Oscar-winning documentary about settler violence and life under Israeli military rule.
In a court decision obtained by The Associated Press, Judge Havi Toker wrote that there was “no dispute” that Levi shot his gun in the village that day, but she said he may have been acting in self-defense and that the court could not establish that the shots killed Hathaleen.
Israel’s military and police did not respond to a request for comment on whether anyone else may have fired shots that day. Multiple calls placed to Levi and his lawyer have not been answered.
The judge said Levi did not pose such a danger as to justify his continued house arrest but barred him from contact with the villagers for a month.
Levi has been sanctioned by the United States and other Western countries over allegations of past violence toward Palestinians. President Donald Trump lifted the U.S. sanctions on Levi and other radical settlers shortly after returning to office.
A total of 18 Palestinians from the village were arrested after the incident. Six remain in detention.
Eitay Mack, an Israeli lawyer who has lobbied for sanctions against radical settlers, including Levi, said the court ruling did not come as a surprise.
“Automatically, Palestinian victims are considered suspects, while Jewish suspects are considered victims,” he said.
Levi helped establish an settler outpost near Umm al-Khair that anti-settlement activists say is a bastion for violent settlers who have displaced hundreds since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Palestinians and rights groups have long accused Israeli authorities of turning a blind eye to settler violence, which has surged since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, along with attacks by Palestinians.
In a 2024 interview, Levi said he was protecting his own land and denied using violence.
Some 70 women in Umm al-Khair said they were beginning a hunger strike on Friday to call for Hathaleen’s body to be returned and for the right of his family to bury him in the village.
Israel’s military said in a statement to the AP that it would return the body if the family agrees to bury him in the “nearest authorized cemetery.”
Hathaleen, 31, had written and spoke out against settler violence, and had helped produce the Oscar-winning film. Supporters have erected murals in his honor in Rome, held vigils in New York and have held signs bearing his name at anti-war protests in Tel Aviv.
