Israel detained and then deported an American nurse who tried to save the life of Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist who worked on the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land.”
After Israeli settler Yinon Levi allegedly shot and killed Hathaleen on Monday in Umm al-Khair, a village in the occupied West Bank, the critical care nurse gave Hathaleen four rounds of CPR. She cradled his head in her hands, checking his pulse and whispering “You’re OK,” as he bled out, the nurse told The Intercept. The medical worker asked not to be named because they fear for their safety. Hathaleen was then taken away in an ambulance, where he died before reaching the hospital.
About 20 feet away, and minutes before Hathaleen was shot, another Israeli settler in an excavator tried to destroy the village’s main water pipe, according to media reports. A local man named Ahmad, Awdah’s cousin, was struck in the head with the excavator’s arm and nearly knocked unconscious after he tried to stop the driver.
Turning to Ahmad after Hathaleen was taken away, the nurse administered a neurological exam; he was severely concussed with diminished mental function before he too was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
“They don’t want people to feel comfortable helping Palestinians.”
Soon after, on Monday evening, Israeli law enforcement officers detained the American nurse and an Italian citizen on the scene. The authorities took them to a police station, where they were detained for nearly 24 hours. In detention, the nurse said they recognized five Palestinians from the village sitting on the ground, blindfolded and zip-tied. At the same time, the nurse said, Levi was walking around freely and sharing cigarettes with the police officers — “no handcuffs or anything.” After reporting as ordered to another police outpost, the nurse was deported on Thursday to Jordan.
The nurse believes it’s because they witnessed the settler incursion and violence, then provided medical care to Hathaleen and his cousin.
“They don’t want people to feel comfortable helping Palestinians,” the nurse said.
In the attack on the village of Umm al-Khair, several Americans attempted to help the Palestinians, according to interviews with eyewitnesses, and they were detained by Israeli authorities. In one of the cases, the American was stopped by authorities from giving medical aid to a Palestinian. Attempts to block and remove first responders stand as examples of one of the ways Palestinians are denied medical care after being attacked by Israelis.
“This fits a longstanding pattern,” said Yousef Munayyer, the head of the Palestine/Israel Program at the Arab Center Washington DC, who has researched settler violence. “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen cases where Palestinians who have been injured, either by settlers or by the military, are denied medical assistance until they’ve bled out.”
The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. The Israeli military referred questions to the Israeli police, who did not immediately respond.
Ahmad, the injured Palestinian, survived, but the nurse was put under scrutiny. According to the nurse, Israeli police said they suspected that the nurse tampered with evidence — a computer located in a public room for villagers to use. The nurse denied the allegations. They were in the room to return medical supplies, according to their account.
The nurse’s account was corroborated by two other eyewitnesses interviewed by The Intercept. One of them, Tynan Kavanaugh, an American medical student who has been volunteering with clinics in the West Bank, helped the nurse attend to the two Palestinians.
Kavanaugh was in the middle of assessing Ahmad when a uniformed Israeli police officer stopped him from rendering aid, he told The Intercept.
“He’s like, ‘Get out of here,’” Kavanaugh recalled in an interview. “So I put my hands up, I walk back through a line of soldiers back into the village, and they corral all the Palestinians and foreigners into this little fenced-off area.”
When Kavanaugh was taken away, along with Palestinian detainees, another man stepped in to render aid alongside the nurse.
Settler Prompts Arrests of Palestinians
Israeli soldiers have repeatedly raided Umm Al-Khair in the days since Hathaleen’s death. The military detained 17 Palestinians and released at least 11, with reports of beatings in custody, according to Drop Site News.
On Tuesday, an Israeli magistrate court in Jerusalem refused to keep Levi in custody, and he was released on house arrest. Levi has a reputation for carrying out violent attacks against Palestinians. The Biden administration sanctioned him last year, but President Donald Trump has lifted sanctions on all Israeli settlers.
Israeli police have so far refused to release Hathaleen’s body despite his family’s pleas.
Israeli settler violence in the West Bank has increased in recent months and years. In June, Israeli settlers injured 100 Palestinians — marking the highest monthly figure since U.N. OCHA started documenting casualties in 2005. In the first two weeks of July, settlers injured 88 Palestinians and carried out multiple attacks against key water infrastructure.
Kavanaugh, the American nurse, and a third American all described how Levi, the settler who attacked Hathaleen, walked freely among Israeli military personnel for more than 40 minutes after the shooting. He seemed to be pointing out Palestinians for the soldiers to arrest, said the eyewitnesses, who provided The Intercept with videos that match the scene they described.
“He did not appear to be in custody, at all. He was just walking around with them, and giving them direction,” said Kavanaugh. “The fact that someone was just murdered was just a non-factor.”
Charlie Nichols, a journalist with Project Walsh, an independent student newsroom, said he also saw Levi point out people for the military to arrest.
“He’s not in handcuffs,” Nichols said. “Nobody’s touching him. He’s obviously not in any kind of hot water; they’re very buddy-buddy …there was no fear on his face.”
“There was no fear on his face.”
Nichols said that he and Kavanaugh could see Levi through a fence, where they had been corralled by the Israeli military, alongside Palestinian detainees.
“After he points someone out, soldiers would walk in and take that person out,” he said. “The fact that somebody had been murdered … and the people who were the victims were arrested, it was the most absurd thing I have witnessed.”
“The police are complicit in what is happening,” the nurse said. “They are there to enforce the settlers’ violence against the Palestinians.”
Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who co-directed “No Other Land,” corroborated the account in a post on X.
“The settlers walk around as if there is a massive force field protecting them,” said Munayyer, of the Arab Center Washington DC, “because there is. And the Palestinians have no such expectation. They have no such protection.”
“There’s no expectation of accountability,” he said, “and the military and police are in on it.”
While he was still at the village, Kavanaugh realized that Levi was standing just a few feet away from him and the nurse as they administered CPR to Hathaleen. Kavanaugh noticed a bullet wound in Hathaleen’s chest and ruffled through medical supplies, but they didn’t have needles or materials to close his chest wounds effectively. Hathaleen was eventually taken away by an Israeli ambulance and died before reaching the hospital.
“The village has so little water that I’m standing there trying to talk to [them] covered in blood that I can’t wash off.”
Some of Hathaleen’s friends and family members, who were nearby, asked Kavanaugh what happened. “I just say: He was very seriously hurt, that I did CPR, and I think there’s hope, but I can’t say anything more than it’s in God’s hands now,” Kavanaugh said. “The village has so little water that I’m standing there trying to talk to [them] covered in blood that I can’t wash off.”
The American nurse was in Umm Al-Khair the day of Hathaleen’s killing at his request; they met a few days earlier, and he had asked her to provide health check ups for villagers.
Hathaleen learned that it would be the nurse’s birthday on Sunday, so he helped plan a surprise birthday party in his home.
“They opened up their home, fed us a big dinner,” the nurse said, “and we did birthday cakes and candles, and they invited us in to play with their kids.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
