Palestinian Women on Hunger Strike to Demand Israel Return Body of Peace Activist Killed by Israeli Settler

More than 60 Palestinian women have launched a hunger strike to demand Israel return the body of a peace activist killed by an Israeli settler last week in the occupied West Bank.

The body of Awda Hathaleen, who was shot and killed on Monday as Israeli settlers moved in to bulldoze his village, is still being held by Israeli authorities.

Meanwhile, his killer—Yinon Levi, a notorious settler who has been sanctioned by several governments, at one point including the United States before President Donald Trump lifted the sanctions—has been set free after a brief period of house arrest.

Hathaleen, who appeared last year in the documentary No Other Land, was highly regarded among peace advocates in Palestine, Israel, and the United States—where he was scheduled for an interfaith speaking tour before he was abruptly deported by the U.S. government in June.

Israeli police have refused to return Hathaleen's body to family members for a burial unless his family agrees to hold a quick funeral under cover of night, outside the village, with no more than 15 people in attendance.

The family refused these restrictive conditions, saying: "Awda is not a thief. We will not bury him in the dark."

Following Hathaleen's killing, Israeli forces have also arrested at least eight others from the village—including Hathaleen's brother.

According to Middle East Eye:

Israeli forces have raided family homes in the village each night since the killing, arresting their husbands and brothers and beating other family members.

"A woman would be not properly dressed, lying in bed, and they would come in and open the door and say, 'We want your husband, we want your brother'," Ikhlas Hazalin, Hathaleen's sister-in-law, told Middle East Eye on Thursday.

"Whenever they didn't find whom they were looking for, other family members would be beaten–his brother, or one of his family members—until the wanted person was brought in."

Hazalin added: "I've never seen such brutality."

On Thursday, 60 women from Hathaleen's village of Umm al-Khair launched a hunger strike, demanding the Israeli military occupation release his body and free the eight others currently being held in detention.

"I found him soaked in his blood," Hathaleen's mother told Al Jazeera. "I started calling his name: 'Awdah!...Awdah!' But he wasn't responding."

"I am on hunger strike until they hand me my son's body," she said. "I want to smell him."

Hathaleen's wife, Hanady, said that their three children—none of whom is older than five—have spent recent days crying for their dad.

"The moment his father was killed, Mohammed was next to him, shouting, 'My God! My God!'," she said. "Mohammed is only two-and-a-half years old."

Her husband's death was the result of the government-backed settler violence he'd spent years attempting to resist. Since October 2023, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the military and settlers in the West Bank, while Israel has demolished nearly 3,000 family homes, according to the United Nations.

In 2025 alone, there have already been more than 750 documented attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians or their property, which the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says is a 13% increase from the previous year. Home demolitions ordered by Israeli authorities forcibly displaced over 1,200 Palestinians in the first half of the year.

The eight people from Umm al-Khair currently being held in detention are among more than 3,000 being held without charges by the Israeli military under administrative detention. Meanwhile, according to the human rights group Yesh Din, 94% of settlers who wage violence against Palestinians walk away without even facing criminal charges.

Allegra Pacheco, head of the West Bank Protection Consortium, described the attack on Umm al-Khair as a microcosm of this grave power imbalance.

"The people who were injured are in prison. The people who tried to prevent this are in prison. The people who acted in self-defence are in prison," she told Middle East Eye. "And the guy with the smoking gun—the guy who shot the gun on video—is sitting at home and drinking coffee."

Hathaleen's family says the military's refusal to let him have "the proper funeral that he deserves" is yet another indignity that they intend to resist.

On Thursday, his wife and nieces announced that they would not eat until his body was returned. Dozens of other women soon joined them across the village—ranging from teenagers to those in their 70s.

Many men in the village have said they will also join if the military continues to hold Hathaleen.

Israeli peace activists have joined in calls for Hathaleen's body to be returned to his family and for other Palestinian prisoners to be freed. Over the weekend, dozens of protesters marched through West Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, leading to four arrests.

(Video: International Solidarity Movement)

"He was a great activist and a great man," said Hathaleen's mother-in-law, Fatme, in a video posted by the International Solidarity Movement. "Our hearts are in pain for him."

"We already had dizziness and fainting from hunger and thirst. Doesn't matter," she said. "Whatever happens to us, we will continue until he is returned to us."

The hunger strikers say they hope their sacrifice will put enough international attention on the Israeli authorities that they'll be pressured to return Hathaleen's body and free their friends and family without conditions.

"We will persist," Fatme Hathaleen said. "Whatever the occupation forces will do, whatever the settlers will do, we will persist."