On the morning of Monday 28 July 2025, a bulldozer from Eyal Hari Yehuda, Yinon Levi’s construction company, was working the land east of the village of Umm al-Kheir which is categorised as state land. The villagers were concerned that the bulldozer would damage the village’s informal water pipes and electricity connection. This concern was later settled between the villagers and the settlers.
At approximately 17:26, when the settlers completed their work, instead of returning the bulldozer to the settlement of Carmel on the main road, [t]he [driver] drove through the village’s land, destroying olive trees and damaging the land and property. Villagers approached the bulldozer to ask the driver to turn around and use the road, at which point the driver swung the boom, hitting Ahmad Hathaleen in the head and knocking him unconscious. Upon seeing Ahmad thrown to the ground, a number of villagers became overcome and retaliated by throwing a stone at the bulldozer.
The other settler, a man named Yinon Levi who has been sanctioned by the United States (these sanctions were lifted on Trump’s first day back in office), the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan and Norway, had driven his own vehicle through the village to meet the bulldozer at the gates of Carmel. He exited his vehicle and began shooting at the villagers. Awdah Hathaleen was standing far from the approaching crowd, inside the nearby, fenced community centre, when Levi began firing. Awdah was hit by a bullet in his chest. The villagers rushed to the settlement gate to request an ambulance be called, and while they waited for the Magen David Adom ambulance to arrive, two international medical volunteers administered first aid to the best of their ability. When the Israeli ambulance arrived, they removed Awdah and took him into the settlement and then to Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva.
Ahmad was taken to the hospital in Yatta in a Red Crescent ambulance.
Five Palestinian villagers were arrested, as well as two international volunteers, among them an American citizen.