Awdah Al-Hathaleen, a Palestinian teacher from the West Bank who was recently denied entry to the United States by San Francisco immigration authorities when he arrived on a valid visa, was shot and killed today in an altercation with an Israeli settler, according to family and Middle East journalists.ย
Phillip Weintraub, a lead organizer of a Palestinian solidarity committee at Kehilla Community Synagogue, who helped sponsor Al-Hathaleen when he attempted to visit San Francisco in June, said he learned of the Al-Hathaleen’s death through Alhadlinโs cousin, Eid Hthaleen.ย
โThe settlers had brought a large bulldozer into the village yesterday,โ Weintraub said. โSo they were predicting something bad was going to happen today.โ
Al-Hathaleen arrived in San Francisco on June 12 with his cousin, Hthaleen, to speak in the Bay Area about their experiences living in the West Bank during the ongoing war and their conflicts with violent Israeli settlers.
The two men were sponsored by the Kehilla Community Synagogue, with which they had ongoing relations and received support in their village in the South Hebron Hills.ย
But upon their landing, Mission Local reported the two menโs Bay Area sponsors learned that their visas had been revoked. After being detained at the San Francisco International Airport for a full day, and about 100 people gathered to protest their detention, they were flown back to the Middle East.ย
While Weintraub called the situation Al-Hathaleen and his neighbors faced in the West Bank โhorrific,โ he did not believe there was any connection between their attempt to visit the United States and the shooting.
The village, Umm Al-Khair, was featured in “No Other Land,” a documentary that won an Academy Award in 2025. Yuval Abraham, a journalist for +972 Magazine and co-director of the film, reported Alhadlinโs death on X.ย
โAn Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film ‘No Other Land’ in Masafer Yatta,โ Abraham wrote in a post today, with an accompanying video of a Yinon Levi, a settler sanctioned by the U.S. government, brandishing a gun wildly and shooting it during an altercation.ย
It is unconfirmed who shot Al-Hathaleen, but Weintraub said the 30-something father of three young children was rushed to a hospital for a gunshot wound to his chest.
A couple hours later, Abraham posted an update: โOdeh just died. Murdered.โ
Note: Awdah Al-Hathaleen’s name is also spelled as Ouda Alhadlin on his documents, but those familiar with him said he used the former spelling.
Israel supports evil. Stand up against genocide.
It’s the same guys over and over in that area, and the same goes for areas north. Outpost settlers act as enforcers for Palestinians who dare to live a rural life in their ancestral villages outside of Area A. And it’s the same result every time: police announce an arrest without giving a name or offense, while there are simultaneous claims of rocks being thrown. It is every. fucking. time.
But it’s all a ruse. Nobody is actually arrested and nobody faces prosecution. Someone is taken in to get their story straight, then released. Then police give no follow-up except to say there is an investigation. Then they wait for it to blow over.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-activist-featured-in-oscar-winning-movie-shot-dead-during-clash-with-settlers/
******
Ben Gvir heads the police and calls the shots, especially around Hebron. He made over 100 outpost settlers into cops this month. It is reasonable to speculate that the pistol Yivon Levi was firing was issued by the police, and that Yivon himself is considered a cop.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israel-s-ben-gvir-forms-new-police-unit-composed-of-illegal-settlers-in-occupied-west-bank/3627297
Okay thatโs a nice one sided diatribe. Reality is palestinian have NEVER wanted peace with Israel. They always want Israel itself (from the river to the seaโฆ) Even now 85% are against two states. This has been documented time and time again is all sort of surveys. Israel has been in a state of war for almost 2 years now, and maybe some of the settlers have overreached with their actions. BUT Palestinian terrorists overreach on a daily basis, yet thatโs glossed over by western media. The war with Gaza could have ended months ago, but hamas refuses to call it quits. Virtually all western countries and the majority of Arab nations (and also the Palestinian authority too) agree that Hamas must not rule Gaza in the future. They are cynically causing the deaths of their own civilians to make Israel look bad because know western media eats it up. Try having a shred of objectivity and you will see this is not a one sided situation.
I don’t think you get what these Bedouin villages are up against. Itamar Ben Gvir is the outlaw sheriff of the South Hebron hills, and he is a notorious “every Jew a .22” Kahanist hellbent on implementing Meir Kahane’s dream of a Greater Israel. Yinon Levi knows he operates with near impunity. This is Zionism at its ugliest.
‘Two sides’. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with people?
No, I donโt think you get it. Ben Gvir is an extremist. Yes heโs in Netanyahuโs coalition, but he is not dominant in any sense on the coalitions political strategy. Most Israelis strongly dislike him, and donโt support his tactics. OTOH hamas are extremists, and they are dominant in Gaza politics. So much so that they sacrifice their population by incessantly using them as human shields in hospitals, mosques, schools, etc., etc. Iโm tired of westerners making gross false equivalencies. Just now the Arab league met and all the nations want Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza. All western nations have been saying that since October 7. 30,000 Israelis that lived near Gaza are still displaced. The impetus is on hamas, and they are largely responsible for the suffering in Gaza by their fanatical stubbornness. Quit blaming Israel for everything.
“but he is not dominant in any sense on the coalitions political strategy.”
Taken a look at the “strategy” lately? It’s exactly what he’s called for all along – starving Palestinian civilians to try to drive them from the region so Israeli settlements can take over Gaza – AND the West Bank. Settlers using violence against long term residents with impunity, their crimes entirely dismissed except in hasbara lip service for external politics, as Israel continuously absolves itself of committing genocide in plain sight. That’s why the governing coalition is even in power at all, an expressed will to annex Palestine and deny a 2 state solution, under pain of death and without representation or due proecss for the occupied people. Oct. 7th was a forewarned event that they haven’t even bothered truthfully investigating the inception of, or the 8-12 hour delay in responding in real time. By their OWN admission, the Mossad exploding pagers were a decade-old plot. This is not a “defense” mentality. Every single hospital, every single school, university, every single church or mosque and 90% of homes bombed deliberately and they say TO THIS DAY that it’s all a big misunderstanding, mistake, or fiction told by anti-Semites exclusively? 60+ % of the journalists who died in the last 2 years died at the hands of the IDF. People are starving by design, so tell me, how EXACTLY is this not EXACTLY what Ben Gvir and Smotrich have been saying they wanted the entire time, as the Knesset and Trump’s GOP sit back and watch it happen while funding it directly? If 50% of America, or 50% of Israel, or greater, is promoting genocide and genocide is taking place, despite denials and with winks and nods, the shorthand of acknowledging the country as “supporting genocide” is unfortunately for the time being accurate to a deeper degree than any have ever admitted internally. The RZ party under Ben Gvir itself only has a dozen or so seats out of 120, but the coalition represents an unfortunate majority in Israel. As a Government they have selfish interests in the region and have rationalized genocide as a means to obtain it. It’s something everyone needs to admit up front now if you want to actually put an end to it, rather than explain why the world is wrong for the accusation.
This story is about the death Awdah Al-Hathaleen. I pay him respect by highlighting what takes place specifically in the South Hebron hills.
Ben Gvir lives like 15 mins from where the murder occurred. He has rockstar status amongst the majority of Jews in those parts. It does not matter what Tel Aviv thinks. His party does not care. They won in a landslide around Kyriat Arba, which is ground zero for maniacal settlers.
This is a tragic murder. Israel is a terrorist nation, funded by American zionists. We must end all monetary and military support of those israeli terrorist settlors/colonizers. BTW, Israel continues to murder American citizens in the West Bank without any repercussions. Free Palestine
I would gladly send a donation via USPS but I do not send money online. Sorry. I enjoy your writings and keeping up with the news. I’m devastated about the death of the Palestinian after being DENIED entry to the US by customs. This is NOT how our country is supposed to operate.
Catherine Brady-Brown
PS please send an address and to whom check should be made out to……….thank you
This gentleman’s death is sad but it seems like a stretch to imply that the ICE decision to deny him entry here is somehow what contributed to his death.
Now if he had been seeking asylum in the US then such a connection could reasonably be made. But as far as I know, he was not.
Whatever reason he had for wanting entry is unclear but evidently it falls foul of US policy. And he should have known that or could reasonably have predicted that.
As an aside I thought that international travel out of the West Bank was restricted, and of course the West Bank has not had an airport since the old Jerusalem airport closed years ago.
David โย
The story explicitly states that there is no apparent connection between the deportation and his subsequent death. It could not have been stated more clearly.
JE
You need to stop, tacitly, enabling corrupt politicians. Because the fact of the matter is the law does give the Administration the power to do this. It’s a law I find personally distasteful but it is the law. Only US CITIZENS are guaranteed entry, all other’s enter (and stay) at the pleasure of the US government. If politicians find this distasteful then they should have done something about it. They could have done something about it in the last budget negotiation and they did nothing. Therefore complaining about the consequences without taking responsibility for how the law became part of this landscape is it self contributing to the problem.
The terrible irony here is that the people who are crying about cases like this and the mass deportations are the same ones who supported the efforts of (self-serving) NGOs who flooded our country with illegal immigrants using doctored-asylum applications. Had they not abused this system, the Administration may very well have just left it alone
Please keep your comments short and civil. Do not leave multiple comments under multiple names on one article. We will zap comments that fail to adhere to these short and easy-to-follow rules and don’t post anything that contradicts the prevailing progressive protected narrative…FTFY
Sir or madam โย
I don’t care if you’re a progressive or a conservative but if your comments are nasty and vindictive and add nothing to the dialog, they don’t need to be here. Also, don’t flatter yourself, dude. It’s the comments section.
Best,
JE
The article heading does put those two facts into the same title however. And that conjunction invites the reader to draw such a connection even if it was not intended.
David โย
No it doesn’t. The fact of the matter is that the man who made the news and you wouldn’t otherwise know because he had his visa rescinded and was deported out of SFO is now dead.
This pretty much models the headline for every obituary ever written. Here’s one for Jack Lord in the New York Times in 1998: “Jack Lord, 77, Helped Direct And Starred In ‘Hawaii Five-O'” You see, it’s normal to put someone’s claim to fame and reason you’d potentially know of them in a headline announcing their death. By your logic, people should infer that Jack Lord’s starring in “Hawaii Five-0” somehow contributed to his death as it was mentioned in the headline.
This is a pretty simple situation and the article is remarkably straightforward.
JE
He was a Palestinian activist, he was detained at SFO, and he was murdered upon (forced, legally questionable) return to Palestine. His accused killer was then released from Israeli custody to house arrest just yesterday. Facts told one after another can, I think, create a latent narrative, but that’s especially unavoidable in a headline where it’s truncated down to a bold-faced summary of the main point. If you read only headlines life is more difficult to understand, that’s certainly true, but that’s a choice you’re making to limit the context instead of reading the article in depth. A poor choice, I think.