Israeli soldiers on Monday blocked an international media tour organized by “No Other Land” directors Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham in the occupied West Bank, preventing journalists from entering the village featured in their Oscar-winning doc.
The doc depicts the Israeli government’s efforts to force Palestinians to leave their homes in Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank. The directors had invited a dozen local and international journalists to visit and witness reportedly worsening violence by Israeli settlers and demolitions at Adra’s home village of At-Tuwani. But the journalists and a Palestinian Authority delegation were blocked by Israeli forces, who said they had a warrant to set up a checkpoint.
In a video posted by Abraham on social media, he is heard telling Israeli soldiers: “You know that they are journalists. They’re coming to see the destruction in Masafer Yatta, the way that you are destroying the community, the settler violence is dangerous.”
An Israeli officer responds in the video that the ban on journalists crossing over into the West Bank is to maintain “order” in the area.
In the ’90s, Masafer Yatta was designated as a live-fire training zone where the Israeli military exercises full control. The West Bank is home to roughly 3 million Palestinians, but also some 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are considered illegal under international law.
In March, only a few weeks after “No Other Land” won the best documentary Oscar, Hamdan Ballal, a co-director on the doc along with Adra, Abraham and Rachel Szor, was attacked and heavily beaten by Israeli settlers near his village and then arrested and held overnight in an army facility.
“These police officers and soldiers that are here now to prevent the international media, not only do they not come to prevent the settler violence, often they partake in it,” Abraham told French news agency AFP, which was on the premises having been invited on the media tour.
Abraham added that he has been trying to cling on to hope that the Oscar success of “No Other Land” would help raise global awareness and stop the violence in Masafer Yatta. “Unfortunately, the world now knows, but there is no action,” he told the AFP.
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