Israeli settler kills West Bank activist who worked on Oscar-winning film
An Israeli settler has shot and killed Palestinian activist and teacher Awdah Hathaleen in the village of Umm al-Khair, in Masafer Yatta, in the occupied West Bank, local officials and journalists said.
Hathaleen was well known for his activism, including helping the creators of the Oscar-winning film No Other Land, which documents Israeli settler and soldier attacks on the Palestinian community of Masafer Yatta.
“My dear friend Awdah was slaughtered this evening,” said Basel Adra, the co-director of No Other Land. “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,” Adra said.
“This is how Israel erases us – one life at a time.”
A Palestinian presents documents to Israeli forces during a protest against illegal Israeli settlements in Masafer Yatta near Hebron, in the occupied West Bank, on January 20, 2023
Smotrich says rebuilding Gush Katif settlement in Gaza now ‘closer than ever’
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel is “closer than ever” to rebuilding the illegal settlement of Gush Katif in southern Gaza that had been dismantled in 2005.
The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper quoted Smotrich as also saying at a conference in the Yad Binyamin settlement in central Israel that where “there are no settlements, there is no army, and where there is no army, there is no security”.
“Gaza is an integral part of the land of Israel,” claimed Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank. “I do not want to return to Gush Katif as it was – it was very small, very crowded, it should be much larger, much wider,” he added.
