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Israel charges settler over killing of Palestinian activist in West Bank in rare prosecution

By CNN

(CNN) — An Israeli settler has been charged with reckless manslaughter for the killing of a prominent Palestinian activist last year, marking a rare instance of Israel prosecuting a settler for violence against Palestinians.

Prosecutors on Thursday unveiled charges against Yinon Levi, who lives in the south of the West Bank, over the death of Odeh Hathalin in July 2025.

The reckless manslaughter charge carries a lesser punishment than murder under Israeli law, with a maximum prison sentence of 12 years. The indictment, filed at the Beersheba District Court, also includes charges of armed trespassing and malicious property damage.

It is extremely unusual for Israel to charge settlers with violence against Palestinians. The charges against Levi mark the first time since the October 7, 2023 attacks that an Israeli has been indicted for killing a Palestinian in the West Bank, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Many settlers are armed, and violence in the West Bank has surged since the beginning of the war in Gaza.

Israel has killed at least 1,100 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023, according to B’Tselem. Of those, 37 were killed by Israeli settlers, it said.

Hathalin, 31, was a prominent voice advocating against settler violence and was involved in the 2025 Oscar-winning film “No Other Land,” which documented Palestinian residents’ fight to protect their homes in the West Bank community of Masafer Yatta. Hathalin, a father of three, was shot in the village of Umm al-Khair, in that same community.

Thursday’s indictment alleges that Levi fired toward an area where villagers, including children, had gathered after he had ordered an excavator operator – who was a minor – to clear an unauthorized route across privately owned Palestinian land in Umm al-Khair.

“At one point, the backhoe operator allegedly used the excavator’s digging tooth against one of the individuals standing in its path, striking him and causing injuries to his head and shoulder. Despite this, Levi allegedly signaled the operator to continue driving and to use the backhoe to break through another fence on the property,” a spokesperson for the Southern District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Prosecutors said that a confrontation developed between Levi and some of the villagers who had gathered to stop the backhoe by throwing stones. Levi allegedly assaulted two Palestinians in that group.

Levi then readied his handgun, moved away from the group and “fired a single shot parallel to the ground,” in an area where children were also present, the statement said.

Hathalin, who was filming from the courtyard about 20 meters (66 feet) away, was struck and killed, it continued.

Levi, 33, founded the unauthorized Meitarim Farm outpost in the South Hebron Hills of the West Bank in 2021.

All Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law by most of the international community and the United Nations, but settlers have successfully established dozens of unauthorized outposts in recent years and eventually secured Israeli government approvals.

In February 2024, Levi became one of the first hardline settlers targeted by US executive sanctions under the Biden administration and was subsequently sanctioned by the UK, Canada and the European Union. US sanctions against Levi and other West Bank settlers were reversed last year as one of Trump’s first executive orders upon his return to office.

The indictment comes as violence in the West Bank continues to escalate.

In late July, the Israeli military launched a large-scale operation there after four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed. The incident began when settlers entered the village of Tell, in an area of the West Bank restricted for Israeli civilians, on what Israeli authorities called an “unauthorized and uncoordinated hike.”

As the group approached the village, clashes broke out between the settlers and residents. In the ensuing gunfire, four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers – one of whom was also a settler – were killed.

Despite video of the incident showing an altercation that escalated and the Israeli military acknowledging that the soldiers’ killings were not premeditated, a major operation was launched and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to accelerate the establishment of more settlement outposts in the area.

This week, Israel’s military said it was unclear whether one of the Israeli soldiers killed in the incident was killed by Palestinian or “incidental” Israeli fire.

The-CNN-Wire
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Judge in Don Lemon indictment asks to see grand jury records, adding to growing scrutiny of Justice Department cases

By CNN
(CNN) — A federal judge in Minnesota will probe this week whether grounds exist to toss the Justice Department’s case against journalist Don Lemon. It’s the latest example of judges’ growing skepticism of whether the department is behaving ethically behind closed doors in grand jury proceedings.Judges across the country have signaled they are willing to give far less deference to federal prosecutors than in previous administrations and have raised concerns about DOJ’s apparent abandonment of regular practices.Federal judges in Wyoming, Illinois and Virginia have either thrown out charges or seriously admonished federal prosecutors for missteps in front of the grand jury. The botched grand jury presentments have prompted a historical review of cases in Chicago and, in some courts, new rules requiring defendants to be notified when a grand jury declines to indict.On August 18, Minnesota federal Judge Laura Provinzino issued a short but extraordinary order demanding the Justice Department provide her a wide swath of grand jury materials related to Lemon and his co-defendants, including presentations made by prosecutors and case agents, and the totality of communications prosecutors had with grand jurors resulting in their indictments.Provinzino set a Tuesday deadline to provide her with the presentation by federal prosecutors and case agents related to grand juries empaneled in January and February. Further, Provinzino told DOJ to provide any introduction, legal instructions, witness testimony, closing arguments, and answers to questions from grand jurors.Lemon’s team has aggressively pursued obtaining grand jury materials and had asked for either grand jury records to be provided to the defense or, at a minimum, reviewed by the judge privately, citing “irregularities” in the grand jury that resulted in his indictment.“There is substantial evidence of grand-jury irregularities in this case,” Lemon’s team wrote in a recent filing.“Multiple judges, including at the Eighth Circuit, found there was no probable cause to charge Lemon” and his co-defendant Georgia Fort, the filing said.Mark Wolf, a former Massachusetts District Court judge and federal prosecutor, said it is rare for defense attorneys to ask for grand jury transcripts in federal court. It is even more rare that judges grant the motions, he said.“There is a high bar to getting grand jury materials,” Wolf said. “You have to have some direct or circumstantial evidence that there has been some defect in the grand jury proceeding.”In her two-page order, Provinzino wrote that she weighed the necessity of maintaining grand jury secrecy against whether grounds may exist to dismiss the case due to a “matter that occurred before the grand jury.”She did not say she had already found evidence of any misconduct.The Justice Department’s initial attempt to charge Lemon in January for appearing alongside protestors who disrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, was rejected by a federal magistrate judge, which “enraged” then Attorney General Pam Bondi, according to a source who spoke to CNN at the time.Lemon, a former CNN anchor, was later indicted by a grand jury along with several other defendants, including independent journalist Georgia Fort. Lemon has been charged with conspiring to violate someone’s constitutional rights and violating the FACE Act, which prohibits the use of force or threats to intentionally interfere with someone expressing their First Amendment right to practice religion.Lemon has pleaded not guilty to both charges. His team has aggressively pursued obtaining grand jury materials throughout the case, and earlier this month filed a motion to dismiss the case altogether.Justice Department losing credibilityWolf told CNN he does not believe the Justice Department’s credibility remains intact.“For good reasons, the Department of Justice’s reputation with judges generally has been injured,” Wolf said.In Chicago, defense attorneys urged Judge April Perry to release grand jury transcripts in the highly publicized case against protestors at an ICE detention facility outside the city.After reviewing those transcripts, Perry found federal prosecutors engaged in inappropriate actions, such as interacting with grand jurors outside the proceeding, ordering some jurors to leave in another hearing, and “vouching” to the grand jurors.Vouching is a practice where prosecutors present their own reputation while delivering their case to a grand jury. It is forbidden in grand jury proceedings because the practice effectively asks jurors to trust the prosecutor personally rather than only on the merits of evidence.“I have never seen the types of prosecutorial behavior before a grand jury that I saw in those transcripts,” Judge Perry said during a May 21 hearing.US Attorney Andrew Boutros then dropped the case against the protestors. Later, after reviewing the prosecutor’s conduct, Boutros opted to drop at least two more criminal cases, ordered a historical review of more than 100 grand jury transcripts, and launched reforms such as more training on grand jury presentations.“If I was a federal public defender or a private defense attorney, every case I get that’s indicted, I’m going to file a motion that is asking the judge to review the transcripts,” said Mike Fox, a current Cato Institute fellow and former Colorado public defender.“In my view, at this point, it doesn’t matter in which court it is, doesn’t matter if I have binding case law,” Fox said. “Every single case, the defense attorney should be filing, and the judge should be inquiring.”In May, a panel of three federal judges in Wyoming dismissed felony drug and gun indictments against nine defendants after the judges found the acting Wyoming US Attorney referred to defendants as “bad guys,” and “murderers,” and handed out business cards to jurors outside of the proceeding.Prosecutors opted not to appeal the judges’ order. Later, Wyoming federal prosecutors empaneled a new grand jury which issued a new indictment. The case remains ongoing.Fox believes the remedy is a more engaged judiciary where judges routinely witness grand jury proceedings.The current law doesn’t require judges to listen to proceedings, but some courts are issuing new local rules to ensure greater oversight. This spring, the Northern District of Illinois, where Boutros is US Attorney, enacted a rule requiring grand juries to alert a magistrate judge when a grand jury fails to issue an indictment.A spokesperson for the Justice Department told CNN in an email the executive office of the US Attorney provides training for prosecutors which includes grand jury practice.“On rare occasions where there is an issue, as noted in our Chicago US Attorney’s office, we took immediate corrective action and provided renewed, in-depth instruction on ethics and grand jury practice,” the spokesperson wrote.“Our US Attorneys will always follow the law and prosecute cases without fear or favor. Nobody is above the law, regardless of political affiliation. Beyond that, we don’t comment on pending litigation.”Grand jury presentments in the spotlight last yearLast fall, in the most high-profile and politically charged example of a problematic grand jury presentment, then-interim US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, took a proposed indictment against former FBI Director James Comey through a grand jury on her own. A magistrate judge in Alexandria, Virginia, reviewed the transcript and found Halligan may have incorrectly presented the law to the grand jury. The judge called the debacle “profound investigative missteps … to potentially undermine the integrity of the grand jury proceeding.”Halligan later admitted to a judge the grand jury hadn’t supported the initial version of the proposed indictment of Comey, and the full grand jury hadn’t signed off on the final charging document. That Comey case was dismissed for a separate reason, when a federal district judge determined Halligan wasn’t serving as a legitimate prosecutor. The Justice Department is appealing.But the grand jury handling in the Comey case and other cases continues to hover over prosecutors.Comey’s defense team, for instance, is attempting to pry into grand jury records in the separate, newer case against him, out of Eastern North Carolina. He is charged there with threatening the president by posting on social media a photo of the numbers “8647” written in seashells on a beach.The phrase 86 is sometimes used to say nix or get rid of something. Trump is the 47th president. Comey has denied wrongdoing in the case.“The highly irregular procedures that led to the indictment create a significant risk that the government misrepresented key issues of fact and law to the grand jury,” Comey’s lawyers wrote in a recent court filing, citing federal searches of Comey that they question.If Comey’s defense cannot gain access to the grand jury transcript, they at least want a judge to look at it to check the Justice Department’s work.Wolf said he is deeply troubled by the Justice Department’s recent actions and told CNN he believes it shows the American people that the department will use the law for partisan purposes.“It sends a message that a Department of Justice that should institutionalize our ideal of equal justice under law is not doing that,” Wolf said. “And that means anybody is vulnerable.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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