Overview
- The southern-district prosecution announced on Thursday, August 6, 2026, that it had indicted 33-year-old Jinon Elija Levi on negligent manslaughter, armed trespass and intentional property damage for the July 2025 shooting.
- Prosecutors say Levi fired into an area where people were present during a dispute over earthworks on private land in Umm al-Chair, a village in the Masafer Jatta area of the southern West Bank.
- The victim, English teacher and activist Awdah Hathaleen, was filmed being shot during the July 2025 incident and had helped on the documentary No Other Land, which drew international attention to the community's plight.
- Human rights group B'Tselem and other activists called the indictment the first of its kind since October 7, 2023, and described it as an exception to a wider pattern of few prosecutions for settler attacks.
- The case could change public and diplomatic scrutiny of Israeli enforcement, since Levi was previously named in 2024 sanctions by Western governments that were later lifted by the US, and observers will watch whether the trial leads to broader accountability.