Israeli court releases illegal settler charged with killing contributor to Oscar-winning West Bank film

An Israeli court on Tuesday ordered the release of an illegal settler charged with killing a Palestinian activist in the occupied West Bank.

Odeh Mohammad Khalil al-Hathalin, 31, who took part in the making of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land as a consultant, was killed by fire from an illegal Israeli settler in the Palestinian village of Umm al-Kheir on Monday night.

Video footage shared by Israeli rights group B’Tselem showed Yinon Levi opening fire on Hathalin.

According to the Haaretz newspaper, the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem released Levi and placed him under house arrest.

“The police attributed to him the crimes of manslaughter and shooting with a firearm,” the daily said.

The EU and the US have previously imposed sanctions on Levy for his violence against Palestinians.

No Other Land, which documents the struggle of Palestinians against Israel’s policies of demolition and displacement in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, won this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary 2024.

Separately, the Israeli army raided the Umm al-Kheir village and arrested two foreign activists, witnesses told Anadolu.

The army declared the village a closed military zone to prevent any media coverage following Monday’s killing, they added.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, at least 1,009 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.