Israel charges settler over killing of Palestinian involved in Oscar-winning West Bank film
Israeli prosecutors have charged a settler over the killing of a Palestinian activist in the occupied West Bank who helped film Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.
Yinon Levy was charged with reckless manslaughter over the July 2025 shooting of Odeh Hathaleen, according to Israel's Southern District Prosecutor's Office.
Israeli rights group B'Tselem said it was the first time an Israeli had been indicted for killing a Palestinian in the West Bank for nearly three years.
A lawyer for Hathaleen's family said they hoped the charges marked a "turning point" in the consequences settlers face for violence against Palestinians.
In a letter seen by The Associated Press, Levy said he would fight for his innocence in court.
He wrote that prosecutors should not penalise acts of self-defence and accused them of providing "de facto support for terrorism", the news agency reported.
A lawyer for Levy, Avichai Hajbi, told the AP the prosecution had made a "mistaken decision".
The charges against Levy also include armed trespassing and malicious property damage during the incident in which settlers operated an excavator in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, leading to a confrontation with residents.
According to the indictment, at some point during the confrontation Levy cocked his gun and fired in the direction of residents, hitting Hathaleen. He then fired another shot into the air, prosecutors said.
Footage of the incident was shared widely online. Levy has previously denied firing the shot that killed Hathaleen.
The indictment is the first since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel which triggered the Gaza war and led to a rise in settler violence in the West Bank, B'Tselem said.
At least 1,110 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since then, according to the UN. At least 41 Israelis have been killed either by a Palestinian armed group or civilian in the West Bank during the same period, the UN said.
B'Tselem described the decision to indict Levy as the "exception that proves the rule".
"The impunity Israel grants to soldiers and settlers who harm Palestinians is not a failure of the system - it is a central component of a policy designed to allow the violence to continue and escalate," it said.
Mattan Berner-Kadish, an Israeli-American activist who was at the scene, told the BBC: "I think the general reaction is happiness that anything is happening while also feeling that it should be a murder charge and a longer maximum sentence.
"Mixed feelings but also certainly pleasantly surprised and happy there might be consequences," he added.
Hathaleen, a teacher and father-of-three, was a prominent voice against settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
He featured in the 2025 Oscar-winning film No Other Land, that follows the legal fight between the Israeli government and Palestinians over Masafer Yatta, a West Bank community of about 20 villages.
Israel's Supreme Court ruled to allow the demolition of homes and expulsion of more than 1,000 villagers in 2022.
Levy, a leader of an outpost farm, was sanctioned by the UK in 2024 because he "used physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities", the UK government said at the time.
He denied the allegations to the BBC in 2024.
He was also sanctioned by the US under the Biden administration but those sanctions were subsequently lifted under President Donald Trump.
Additional reporting by Mallory Moench
Reporting from BBC News contributed to this story.
