My sweet friend Awdah Hathaleen was murdered by a West Bank settler. May his memory be a revolution

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2025/aug/08/awdah-hathaleen-tribute

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A Palestinian activist, he helped his community resist Israel’s attempts to erase it. On Thursday, they buried him.

I got the news last Monday afternoon: a text from Ali, a fellow activist, that simply read: “Awdah </3, Allah y’rahmo” – an Arabic blessing for the dead. I pulled over on the highway, jaw clenched, feeling the world blur in front of me. An hour earlier, I’d seen reports that settlers had invaded Umm al-Khair, Awdah’s village in the southern West Bank. He’d been shot, lost his pulse and was in an ambulance being rushed to the hospital.

I knew all of that. But I hadn’t contended with the real possibility that Awdah, my sweet friend with a quick wit and an oversized heart, could die. Awdah, I thought, was simply too alive to die.

I first met Awdah in 2019, when we were both 25. I had come to Masafer Yatta, a cluster of West Bank communities under perpetual threat of expulsion, through a network of Jewish solidarity activists, trying to find my footing as a photojournalist in a land steeped in both love and violence. He was already a leader, an English teacher and a prolific storyteller, guiding his community’s resistance to Israel’s attempts to erase it.

I learned quickly that Awdah was known across the region for the unique way he built relationships. He was adamant that truly everyone was welcome in Umm al-Khair: diplomats, activists, journalists and friends. He spent uncountable days with them, giving tours and telling heartbreaking stories about his life under Israeli occupation and his unrelenting commitment to fighting for a better world for his three small children.

He took these connections seriously. If you came to Umm al-Khair as a guest, Awdah expected you to stay – for tea, then dinner, then the night. And when you finally left, he’d ask with a sly smile: “But my friend, when are you coming back?”

I knew these relationships were also strategic – Awdah wanted people around the world to join him in fighting for Umm al-Khair. The village, with only a few hundred residents, is surrounded on three sides by the illegal settlement of Carmel, and every built structure in it is under threat of demolition. With so few resources and limited means to resist the constant pressures of military control, settler violence and threats of displacement, Awdah believed that international attention could help fortify the villagers’ struggle to remain on the land. “Oftentimes, we want to just leave and let the pain go,” he once wrote. “But we know we have to stand in the trauma in the hopes that the story we share will change the minds of those who support the Israeli occupation.”

In the winter of 2023, I ran a series of photography workshops for Awdah and his three co-editors of the Humans of Masafer Yatta blog, a project documenting the struggle against the looming expulsion of Palestinians in the region. (Two of them would go on to direct the Oscar-winning No Other Land, which Awdah helped produce.) On the day of our first session, the army had set up a temporary checkpoint at the entrance of the village, blocking people from exiting and delaying our start time by hours. We all felt defeated; I was ready to call it a day – darkness is far from ideal for a photography lesson. Awdah, however, was insistent we carry on. “Friends,” he said (as he always addressed us): “This is what lights are for. We will continue with the lesson.”

This past week, I have returned many times to the photos from that first photography lesson, and the memory of Awdah’s persistence that kept us there. Awdah was determined, that day and every day, not to let the army dictate his life. But more than that, this story reminds me of Awdah’s tireless commitment to storytelling. For him, the photography lessons were also part of his stubborn insistence on documenting his reality and sharing it in every way he could. It was an act of faith – not out of naive optimism, but dedication to keep fighting no matter the odds. And he believed, like me, that cameras could “perhaps shed a little bit of light on what actually happens in the darkness of Israel’s military occupation”.

It is gut-wrenching that Awdah’s story is reaching the world in the wake of his death. In the days since he was killed, thousands of activists, journalists and elected officials have publicly demanded justice for him and his family. Meanwhile, Yinon Levy, the settler who shot and killed Awdah, remains free. He has since returned to Umm al-Khair with his bulldozer to continue digging into privately owned Palestinian land. After holding Awdah’s body for 10 days, Israeli authorities finally permitted his funeral on Thursday – yet military checkpoints blocked many mourners from attending, and Israel’s high court declined to intervene.

On Monday, I stood in the streets of Manhattan, taking pictures as thousands protested against Israel’s violence against the Palestinians, many holding signs that read “Justice for Awdah”. I can only hope the horror of his murder strengthens a collective demand for justice – not only for Awdah, but for all Palestinians living under apartheid, occupation and forced dispossession. May we carry his legacy forward not only by fighting for the destination – freedom, safety, dignity – but by insisting on the path he modeled: one built through relationships, solidarity and love.

Awdah, the most determined fighter for Palestinian dignity and the fullness of life – we mourn for you. You will be missed for lifetimes. May your memory be a revolution.

Emily Glick is a freelance documentary photographer based in Boston