Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist and English teacher, was shot dead last week in the village of Umm al-Kheir, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, killing more than 60 Palestinian women.
The collective action, which started on Thursday, resulted in the receipt of two women’s medical care.
The group is requesting the body of the 31-year-old community leader who co-directed the documentary No Other Land, which won an Oscar this year, be released without condition. No more than 15 people were present at the village’s overnight burial ceremony, which was ordered by Israeli police.
The protesters also demand the release of seven Umm al-Kheir residents who have been detained by Israeli forces and are still undergoing administrative detention, a quasi-judicial procedure where Palestinians are detained without charge or trial.
Umm al-Kheir belongs to Masafer Yatta, a group of Palestinian hamlets on the southern hills of Hebron, where residents have fought for decades to remain in their homes since Israel designated the area as an Israeli “firing” or training area.
Women between the ages of 13 and 70 were taking part in the hunger strike, according to Iman Hathaleen, Awdah’s cousin. She told Al Jazeera, “I am starving and breastfeeding right now as I’m talking.” We’ll carry on until the body is released so that we can honor him according to Islamic customs. According to our religion, we must grieve him.
Awdah was taken by ambulance to Beer Sheva’s Soroka Hospital on July 28 and later declared dead. An Israeli settler had shot him. The police took his body for an autopsy at the Jaffa-based Abu Kabir National Institute of Forensic Medicine on Wednesday. The family then agreed to stringent terms for the funeral and burial, and they then refused to return the body.
A “trick to break their spirit,” they say.
Israeli policy of withholding a Palestinian’s body was a common practice, according to Fathi Nimer, a researcher at the Al-Shabaka think tank. There are hundreds of Palestinians whose bodies are used as bargaining chips by their families to stop any form of activism, resistance, or attempt to overthrow the spirit of resistance, Nimer told Al Jazeera.
This is a tactic to break the village’s spirit because “Awdah was very loved in the village,” he continued.
Yinon Levi, the Israeli settler accused of firing the deadly shots, was put on house arrest for a while in the meantime. Awdah, who was shot in the chest by Levi, was captured on a video that local activists shot him.
Odeh Hadalin, a remarkable activist who assisted us in making No Other Land in Masafer Yatta, was just shot in the lungs by an Israeli settler. Residents identified shooter as Yinon Levi, who has been given EU and US sanctions. In the video, he is wildly firing. pic. twitter.com/xH1Uo6L1wN
On Monday, residents of Umm al-Kheir documented Levi’s return. He was seen overseeing bulldozing work alongside army officers at the nearby settlement in Carmel, according to images shared on social media sites.
Levi is one of several Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank who was previously subject to Israeli law under the former US President Joe Biden’s blatant use of violence against Palestinians.
In an executive order issued shortly after taking office for a second term in January, US President Donald Trump reversed those sanctions. However, Levi is still subject to sanctions from the UK and the European Union.
According to Nimer, individual sanctions have little effect on settler violence and the expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements. There needs to be real international action to sanction Israel and put an end to any of this behavior, he said. It’s not just individuals.
A “continued trauma”
Levi’s return, according to Iman, Awdah’s cousin, raises concerns for the safety of her family. We’re concerned that he’s back and capable of doing this again, and perhaps he’ll shoot someone else, she told Al Jazeera. An Israeli bulldozer struck Suleiman Hathaleen, her father, in 2022, killing him.
The hunger strike was a desperate plea for a community that had lost all hope of obtaining justice through legal means, according to Oneg Ben Dror, a Jaffa-based activist and friend of the Hathaleen family.
The women claim that returning the body is only a last resort because they believe it is their way of protesting. The community needs the opportunity to start grieving and beginning to recover from this horrible crime.
She added that Levi and other settlers were a “continuous trauma and nightmare” for both his wife, who has been widowed while taking care of three young children, in Umm al-Kheir.
On Sunday, dozens of left-wing Israeli and international activists marched in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to support the demands made by the hunger strikers. During the demonstrations, four people were detained.
Since January, the UN office has reported 757 Israeli-occupied Palestinians, up 13% from the year before, as well as close to 1.000 deaths.
Additionally, hundreds of homes have been destroyed and raids have been carried out across the occupied West Bank. In the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, on Monday, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians. Additionally, the Israeli municipality issued a demolition order for Palestinians’ homes in occupied East Jerusalem, Silwan.
Source: Aljazeera
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