On July 28, 2025, an Israeli colonist shot the Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in the chest, causing injuries that turned out to be deadly. The attack was captured by video, and the shooter was identified as Yinon Levi, a colonist previously sanctioned by the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States under the Biden administration.
Hathaleen, 31, was a beloved activist and professor of Masafer Yatta in the hills in the south of Hebron. He also played a supporting role in the Oscar -winning film without any other land, which depicts the history of his village, subject to incessant attacks of settlers and soldiers aligned by settlers for decades.
The murder of Hathaleen is far from isolated. He is one of the more than 1,000 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since the Gaza genocide began in October 2023. This increase in violence coincides with a sharp increase in Palestinian land convulsions and home demolitions. The Israeli government has used Gaza genocide as a cover to accelerate its buyout plans for the West Bank. A few days before entering into its three -month summer recess, the Israeli Knesset adopted a non -binding motion to annex the whole territory.
The request of the Knesset comes a year after the decision of July 2024 of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) according to which the continuous occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel that it seized in 1967 is illegal and must end. The court ordered the Israeli regime to dismantle the colonies, to propose repairs and to facilitate the return of the displaced Palestinians, fixing in September 2025 as a deadline.
In the months preceding the CIJ’s decision, countries like Australia, France, the United Kingdom and Canada announced sanctions on a handful of settlers and entities involved in the colonization company. Hathaleen’s killer Yinon Levi was among those sanctioned. However, as expected, travel prohibitions and the financial restrictions imposed by these countries had no impact on the ground. Levi continued his attacks against the Palestinians from his illegal settlers of the colonists, operating under complete protection of the army.
Not only did these sanctions had any impact, but distinguishing some settlers rather than the fight against the wider machines of colonialism of the colonists, they also allow the Israeli regime to escape responsibility by presenting the violence of the colonists as an aberration rather than an extension of the policy of the state.
By deliberately distinguishing the “extremist” settlers and the rest of the Israeli regime, the states implement tokens measures which allow them to posture as defenders of international law while avoiding any confrontation with the regime itself.
The reality is that Israel operates as a colony company, and its state policy has always been to extend its territory throughout historical Palestine and beyond, as demonstrated by the occupation of certain parts of southern Syria and Lebanon over the past two years.
Today, more than 700,000 settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in more than 250 colonies and outposts, which all violate international law and are supported by state infrastructure, security forces and planning agencies. This expansion has been made in place by hollow measures such as Levi’s sanction, where the targeting of some individuals only serves to protect the responsible regime of the system even they maintain.
This political theater is completely absurd. We cannot significantly sanction the violence of the settlers while maintaining a complete diplomatic, economic and military support for a regime which is, by definition, a settlers’ regime. The colonist and the state are inseparable. Sanctioning one while legitimizing the other is not a responsibility; It is a bond. The murder of Hathaleen is not an anomaly but the direct result of this system, which is protected, funded and excused by the same states which claim to oppose it. Such actions do not question the status quo; They strengthen them and normalize it. The rupture of this cycle requires that the states put an end to their support for the genocidal regime of Israel for regulation and occupation, through complete sanctions and real responsibility which targets the system, not only its deadly soldiers.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.