Israeli soldiers bar West Bank tour organized by Oscar winners

Euronews

2 days ago

Israeli soldiers on Monday barred journalists from entering villages in the West Bank on a planned tour organized by the directors of the Oscar-winning movie No Other Land.
The directors of the deeply compassionate and powerful documentary, which focuses on the systematic Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, said they had invited the journalists on the tour to interview residents about increasing settler violence in the area.
In video posted on X by the film's co-director, Yuval Abraham, an Israeli soldier tells a group of international journalists there is "no passage' in the area because of a military order.
Basel Adra, a Palestinian co-director of the film who lives in the area, said the military then blocked the journalists from entering two Palestinian villages they had hoped to visit.
'They don't want journalists to visit the villages to meet the residents,' said Adra, who had invited the journalists to his home. 'It's clear they don't want the world to see what is happening here.'
Some of the surrounding area, including a collection of small Bedouin villages known as Masafer Yatta, was declared by the military to be a live-fire training zone in the 1980s. Some 1,000 Palestinians have remained there despite being ordered out, and journalists, human rights activists and diplomats have visited the villages in the past.
Palestinian residents in the area have reported increasing settler violence since 7 October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and kickstarted the war in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
Adra said the journalists were eventually able to enter one of the villages in Masafer Yatta, but were barred from entering Tuwani, the village where he lives, and Khallet A-Daba, where he had hoped to take them.
Adra said settlers arrived in Khallet A-Daba Monday and took over some of the caves where village residents live, destroying residents' belongings and grazing hundreds of sheep on village lands. The military demolished much of the village last month.
No Other Land, which won theOscar this year for Best Documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. The joint Palestinian-Israeli production was directed by Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, and Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film also won Best Documentary at the Berlinale, with Adra using his acceptance speech to say that it was difficult to celebrate while his Palestinian compatriots in Gaza were being 'slaughtered and massacred.' He called on Germany 'to respect the UN calls and stop sending weapons to Israel.'
Abraham, then took to the stage: 'We are standing in front of you. Now, we are the same age. I am Israeli, Basel is Palestinian. And in two days, we go back to a land where we are not equal.'
He continued: 'I am under civilian law; Basel is under military law. We live 30 minutes from one another but I have voting rights. Basel does not have voting rights. I am free to move where I want in this land. Basel, like millions of Palestinians, is locked in the occupied West Bank. This situation of apartheid between us, this inequality, has to end.'
At the time, the speeches of Abraham and Adra were criticized by the Mayor of Berlin, Kai Wegner - of the Christian Democratic Union party.
On X, he wrote: 'Anti-Semitism has no place in Berlin, and that also applies to the art scene. I expect the new management of the Berlinale to ensure that such incidents do not happen again.'
This led to a massive backlash, and this year, the new Berlinale director Trcia Tuttle addressed the controversy around the film, defending the No Other Land filmmakers by saying that 'discourse which suggests this film or its filmmakers are antisemitic creates danger for all of them, inside and outside of Germany, and it is important that we stand together and support them.'
American actress Renée Victor, who voiced the scene-stealing, sandal-throwing Abuelita in Disney's animated hit film Coco and played the wisecracking Lupita in the TV show Weeds has died aged 86.
Victor's death was confirmed on Monday by a representative, Julie Smith, who said the actress had lymphoma for several years. She died Friday at her home in Sherman Oaks, California, Smith said, with family by her side.
Victor appeared in 22 episodes of Weeds as sassy housekeeper Lupita between 2005 and 2012, among many other TV credits including ER, Matlock and The Addams Family.
But she was perhaps best known for her voice work on Coco, the 2017 gem that explored death through the journey of a young Mexican boy to the land of the dead.
A post on the Instagram feed of Pixar, which produced Coco, said: 'We are heartbroken to hear of the passing of Renée Victor, the voice (of) Abuelita in 'Coco' and an incredible part of the Pixar family. We will always remember you.'
Born in San Antonio, Texas, on 25 July 1938, Victor began her performing career as a singer and dancer. She moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s, according to biography material provided by her representatives, where she launched her career singing with prominent big band leaders Xavier Cugat and Pérez Prado. She also taught Latin dancing, including salsa and tango.
She met her future husband, Ray, during that period, and from 1963 to 1973, they performed together as 'Ray & Renée,' a variety show took them around the world.
By the '80s, she had moved into TV and film work. Her film credits included The Doctor with William Hurt (1991), The Apostle (1997) directed by and starring Robert Duvall and A Night in Old Mexico (2013), also with Duvall. In 2004, she had a recurring role as Florina Lopez on TV's ER, and the following year was cast in Weeds. Other series credits included Snowpiercer (2020-2021), Mayans M.C. (2022), Dead to Me (2020-2022), and With Love (2021-2023). Her final film role was in 2023's Moe.
Victor is survived by her daughters, Raquel and Margo Victor.