A prominent Palestinian activist who worked on the Oscar-winning documentary passed away Monday, according to local journalists and officials.
Odeh Hathalin, a consultant for “No other Land,” a film documenting Israeli settlers and military attacks in the West Bank community of Masafayatta, was filmed in the village of Umm al-Khair in the same community.
Israeli police said the forces arrived on the scene and detained Israeli civilians. Police did not identify the man they had arrested. The Israeli military alleged that “terrorists threw rocks at Israeli civilians near Carmel, an Israeli settlement near Um al-Khaea.”
The Hatalinn shooting was first reported by Yubal Abraham, an Israeli investigative journalist who co-directed “No Other Lands.” Abraham said Hatalin was “shot in the upper body” and was in a critical state. The Palestinian Ministry of Health later said he had died of injuries.
According to the United Nations, many settlers are armed, and violence in the West Bank has skyrocketed since the attack on Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Settlers have a strong influence on Israeli politics, and in rare cases they are arrested for violent attacks on Palestinians, they are often released without claims.
Jewish settlements in the West Bank under Israeli occupation are illegal under international law.
Ofer Cassif, a left-wing member of the Israeli Parliament, requested that authorities begin an investigation into Hatalin’s death.
“The incident occurred in wide daylight, in front of cameras, without fear of evidence of the paralysis of law enforcement and the complete immunity enjoyed by violent settlers,” Kassif wrote in a letter to the Israeli lawyer general.
Basel Adora, a Palestinian journalist and co-director of “No Other Lands,” shared his testimony to his “dear friend” Hatterin.
“He was standing in front of the village community settlers when the settlers stabbed them in the chest and fired a bullet that had taken their lives, and this is how Israel erased us.
Last month, Hutalin was detained at San Francisco International Airport upon arrival and was deported after immigration officers cancelled his visa, local media reported. He had been invited to visit a California synagogue as part of a pagan speaking tour.
CNN reported in March that the settlers had targeted Hamdan Ballal, another co-director of “no other lands.” Baral, who recently returned from Los Angeles to accept Oscar for the film, told CNN that he thought a group of settlers would kill him. He was detained by Israeli soldiers, handcuffed, blindfolded and beaten.
The film No other Land, which tracked the destruction of the Masser Yatta community between 2019 and 2023, won the best documentary feature film at the 2024 Oscars. That final scene shows Adora’s cousin Zakhara al-Adora, who was shot by Israeli settlers in October 2023.
