The West Bank community of Umm al-Khair has been consumed by the illegal Israeli settlement of Carmel. But despite losing land and loved ones, Palestinians there refuse to leave. “This is my land,” says Ahmad Hathaleen. “This is where I belong.”
Awdah Hathaleen was killed by Israeli settler Yinon Levy in broad daylight. The perpetrator walks free, while Awdah’s body has been held hostage by the Israeli army. The village of Umm al-Khair is going on hunger strike to recover his body.
A recent Israeli military order threatens to displace 1,200 Palestinians from our homes in Masafer Yatta, but we refuse to be erased.
The Palestinian communities of Masafer Yatta have been in Israel’s cross hairs for 40 years. Its inhabitants now fear that a recent Israeli military order is a bid to expel them from their lands once and for all.
I met Louis Theroux to share my story as a Palestinian under the constant threat of displacement. While the film is an important look into the Israeli settlers trying to erase us, there is one crucial part of our story that was left out.
The attack on Jinba reveals the deep-seated inequalities in the way Palestinians are treated by the world. Our suffering is minimized and our stories are erased when you don’t have an Oscar.
“No Other Land” won a well-deserved Oscar, but co-director Yuval Abraham’s speech epitomized liberal Zionist hasbara, centering the needs of Israelis over Palestinian freedom, while undermining the resistance of the Palestinian subjects of the film.
Masafer Yatta, the Palestinian community at the center of the Oscar-winning film ‘No Other Land’, is still at imminent risk of forcible displacement. An activist from the community writes about the daily settler pogroms targeting his people.
Despite being the victims of an attack on our own land, we now face the possibility of imprisonment. It’s not a normal way of life, but it has become the normalized reality under Israeli occupation.
Alison Russell was detained by Israeli forces while documenting home demolitions in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. She was deported following a perfunctory hearing where Israeli police accused her of “supporting terrorism.”