Documented the confrontation - and was shot to death: The serious indictment against Yinon Elia Levi
According to the indictment, Yinon Elia Levi ordered a minor to break through an agricultural area in Umm al-Khair, confronted the residents, and fired at them. One of the bullets killed Odeh Ahadlin, who was documenting the incident on his mobile phone.
Yinon Elia Levi (33) from the settlement of Ma'on, an earthworks contractor, was supervising the work of an excavator with a hydraulic breaker in the settlement of Carmel in the southern Hebron Hills. At the end of one of the workdays, he ordered the excavator driver, a 17-year-old minor, to break a new path to bring the vehicle to its parking spot.
Elia Levi pointed in the direction he decided the path would take and instructed his worker where to drive. The route he sought to break passed through a fence and through private agricultural lands. Levi knew this, but despite this, while demonstrating disregard for the situation on the ground and its owners, he ordered the worker to pass through it. The worker drove the excavator in the direction Elia Levi instructed.
Residents of the Palestinian village of Umm al-Khair, who noticed the movement of the excavator and understood where it was about to travel, gathered in front of it with the goal of preventing it from damaging the crops and the fence surrounding them. Elia Levi noticed this, and while completely ignoring the fact that breaking a new path was not in the work plan, he did not stop the vehicle's movement.
His attempt to enter the area on foot to act against the villagers was unsuccessful. He pulled out a pistol and aimed it at the ground. The residents advanced toward the excavator to call on the driver to stop, but he also did not respond to their call. He operated the vehicle's arm and hit one of the gatherers with the hydraulic breaker. They began throwing stones at him, but he continued his drive while trampling the crop area. Afterward, he collapsed the fence with the hydraulic breaker and drove over it several times with the intention of destroying it.
The residents approached Elia Levi and began to curse and revile him in light of the act his worker had committed. They continued to throw stones until one of them hit the rear excavator window and shattered it. Elia Levi demanded they stop throwing stones, and at the same time, he struck one of them who was close to him. Afterward, he aimed the pistol toward the group of villagers and fired one bullet at them, which hit and killed Odeh Ahadlin while he was documenting what was happening on his mobile phone. This did not stop his actions, and he fired another bullet into the air while walking toward them and demanding they not throw stones.
An ambulance of Magen David Adom that the residents called took Ahadlin to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba, where his death was determined. Yinon Elia Levi was arrested and interrogated by the Hebron police, and today (Thursday) the Southern District Attorney's Office filed an indictment against him in the Beersheba District Court for offenses of manslaughter, trespassing, and intentional damage.
