A Palestinian activist, he helped his community resist Israel’s attempts to erase it. On Thursday, they buried him.
Emily Glick
I got the news last Monday afternoon: a text from Ali, a fellow activist, that simply read: “Awdah </3, Allah y’rahmo” – an Arabic blessing for the dead. I pulled over on the highway, jaw clenched, feeling the world blur in front of me. An hour earlier, I’d seen reports that settlers had invaded Umm al-Khair, Awdah’s village in the southern West Bank. He’d been shot, lost his pulse and was in an ambulance being rushed to the hospital.
I knew all of that. But I hadn’t contended with the real possibility that Awdah, my sweet friend with a quick wit and an oversized heart, could die. Awdah, I thought, was simply too alive to die.
I first met Awdah in 2019, when we were both 25. I had come to Masafer Yatta, a cluster of West Bank communities under perpetual threat of expulsion, through a network of Jewish solidarity activists, trying to find my footing as a photojournalist in a land steeped in both love and violence. He was already a leader, an English teacher and a prolific storyteller, guiding his community’s resistance to Israel’s attempts to erase it.
I learned quickly that Awdah was known across the region for the unique way he built relationships. He was adamant that truly everyone was welcome in Umm al-Khair: diplomats, activists, journalists and friends. He spent uncountable days with them, giving tours and telling heartbreaking stories about his life under Israeli occupation and his unrelenting commitment to fighting for a better world for his three small children.
He took these connections seriously. If you came to Umm al-Khair as a guest, Awdah expected you to stay – for tea, then dinner, then the night. And when you finally left, he’d ask with a sly smile: “But my friend, when are you coming back?”
I knew these relationships were also strategic – Awdah wanted people around the world to join him in fighting for Umm al-Khair. The village, with only a few hundred residents, is surrounded on three sides by the illegal settlement of Carmel, and every built structure in it is under threat of demolition. With so few resources and limited means to resist the constant pressures of military control, settler violence and threats of displacement, Awdah believed that international attention could help fortify the villagers’ struggle to remain on the land. “Oftentimes, we want to just leave and let the pain go,” he once wrote. “But we know we have to stand in the trauma in the hopes that the story we share will change the minds of those who support the Israeli occupation.”….
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/ng-interactive/2025/aug/08/awdah-hathaleen-tribute
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