On September 13, the Israeli military reportedly conducted a raid on the home of Basel Adra, co-director of the acclaimed documentary No Other Land, located in the Occupied West Bank. This troubling incident was first revealed on social media platform X by investigative journalist Yuval Abraham, who also co-directs the film.
The military action followed a violent altercation involving a group of Israeli settlers who attempted to attack Adra’s family in the village of At-Tuwani, in the Masafer Yatta area. According to Adra’s Instagram update, his brother was nearly run over by an all-terrain vehicle driven by settlers, who subsequently assaulted him, Basels’s older brother, and a cousin. In the process, at least one of the victims, Adra’s brother, sustained injuries severe enough to require hospitalization. Additionally, a foreign activist who was present—a woman—was also attacked, further emphasizing the violent climate surrounding the region’s residents. The aggressors were identified as inhabitants of the illegal Havat Ma’on settlement, which has previously been linked to fundraising initiatives from U.S. citizens to support their paramilitary operations.
This raid is part of a broader trend of assaults targeting affiliates of the Israeli-Palestinian collective that produced No Other Land. The film provides an eye-opening account of the Israeli occupation and the ongoing forced displacement faced by communities in Masafer Yatta. Just a few months earlier, in July, an activist associated with the film, Awdah Hathaleen, was tragically shot and killed by a settler infamous for such offenses. Moreover, co-director Hamdan Ballal was brutally attacked at his house during Ramadan, with settlers mockingly referring to him as the “Oscar-winning filmmaker.”
While Basel Adra was tending to his injured family members at the hospital, the Israeli military forcibly entered his residence, where his wife and nine-month-old child remained. Adra reported to CNN that military personnel also obstructed an ambulance from accessing a nearby road to provide aid.
According to Adra, the settlers’ attack was sparked by their incursion onto his olive grove. The Israeli military justified their raid by alleging that stones were thrown at Israeli civilians, an accusation that Adra firmly denied. In a series of poignant video clips shared on Instagram, distressing scenes unfold as a man recklessly drives an ATV towards a group of people, while another man is seen violently pushing a woman, reported to be a solidarity activist, to the ground.
Despite having filed numerous complaints against the settlers for allowing their sheep to graze on his olive trees, Adra expressed frustration over the lack of police intervention on the matter.
As of now, Adra has yet to respond to inquiries from Hyperallergic regarding the raid. Notably, he and his fellow co-directors earned an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film in March, where they utilized their acceptance speech to advocate for the cessation of violence against Palestinians. Their documentary encapsulates harrowing realities of home demolitions and settler violence within Adra’s home village. However, it remains without a distributor in the U.S.
The film’s final scene poignantly depicts Adra’s cousin, Zakaria al-Adra, sustaining a gunshot wound to the stomach, showcasing the brutal realities that continue to afflict Palestinian families.
“Two months ago, I became a father, and my aspiration for my daughter is that she will not endure the same life that I lead now, characterized by constant fear of violence, home demolitions, and the forced displacement that my community in Masafer Yatta confronts daily,” Adra expressed during his Oscar speech.
In an ironic twist, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences previously issued an apology to co-director Ballal after inadvertently omitting him and the film No Other Land from an initial statement referencing his attack. Recently, a significant number of film industry professionals signed a petition pledging to boycott Israeli cinema institutions and festivals, standing in solidarity with Palestinian filmmakers.
