Israeli soldiers bar media from visiting West Bank villages on tour organized by Oscar winners
JERUSALEM (AP) — 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 film, which focuses on Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory, said they had invited the journalists on the tour Monday 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.
Israel's military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
'They don't want the world to see what is happening here'
'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 Oct. 7, 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.
Film won several awards
'No Other Land,' which won the Oscar 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, another Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, along with Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
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The film has won a string of international awards.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
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Winnipeg Free Press
15 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
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It also has details on recognizing and treating the symptoms of dehydration and heat exhaustion. But it's tough to avoid the heat and crowds when the Hajj is outdoors. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many, elevating the personal stakes further, and temperatures in Mecca are already 41 degrees Celsius (about 106 Fahrenheit). Although the desert kingdom spends billions of dollars on crowd control and cooling, the volume of pilgrims and climatic conditions make it difficult to guarantee people's safety. A ban on children under 12 at the Hajj Saudi Arabia has banned children under 12 from this year's Hajj — one of the biggest policy changes in recent years. Riyadh reportedly introduced the ban as a precautionary measure to ensure children's safety during the pilgrimage, which could be a dangerous environment for them because of the huge crowds. 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Canada Standard
an hour ago
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Will Israelis Repent for Gaza Genocide Re-Humanization Takes Courage
The genocide in Gaza continues unabated as I write these lines. Belatedly, a few Israelis have begun decrying the starvation and mass murder that their armya peoples armyhas perpetrated since October 2023. These acts, supported by the majority of the countrys Jews, exceed in cruelty and brutality the violence that the IDF routinely used against Palestinians since before the unilateral declaration of independence in 1948. Dispossession, deportation, and death have been their tragic fate. The difference this time is not only in the degree of violence. Israeli leaders no longer hide behind diplomatic discourse and euphemisms. Their plan is clear: make Greater Israel *goyimrein*, cleansed of non-Jews. Residents of Gaza and the West Bank are being forced to leave their land and move elsewhere. This plan has long been discreetly envisaged by successive Israeli governments, but the fear of international sanctions prevented them from acting it out. 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The sacrifice of tens of thousands of civilian lives to ensure this right has not shaken this ideological mantra. Beinart observes that In most of the Jewish world today, rejecting Jewish statehood is a greater heresy than rejecting Judaism itself. We have built an altar and thrown an entire [Palestinian] society on the flames. True, Beinart in New York and the author of these lines in Montreal can afford to indulge in dreams of equality. We are not the ones to face the consequences. But there are more and more people in Israel who see the moral and practical dead end of continuing the oppression and dispossession. Jewish tradition teaches that it is never too late to change course, to repent, and to make amends. Of course, to make such a sharp turn requires courage. A well-known Jewish insight is quite clear about it: Who is the greatest of all heroes? He who turns an enemy into a friend. 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an hour ago
- Toronto Star
What we know about the visa obtained by Egyptian man who injured a dozen people in Colorado
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