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 said in a statement that entry into Khallet A-Daba, was banned because it was in a live-fire training zone. Tuwani, is not in the firing zone, but the military said it had barred 'individuals who might disrupt order from entering the area,' in order to 'maintain public order and prevent friction."
'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.
It said in a statement to AP that the structures in the village were built illegally and demolished after the residents had the chance to present their cases against demolition.
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.
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.
___
Follow AP's war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Julia Frankel, The Associated Press
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Hill
11 minutes ago
- The Hill
President Lee picks South Korea's first civilian defense chief in 64 years
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung nominated a five-term liberal lawmaker as defense minister Monday, breaking with a tradition of appointing retired military generals. The announcement came as several prominent former defense officials, including ex-Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun, face high-profile criminal trials over their roles in carrying out martial law last year under then-President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was indicted on rebellion charges and removed from office. Ahn Gyu-back, a lawmaker from Lee's Democratic Party, has served on the National Assembly's defense committee and chaired a legislative panel that investigated the circumstances surrounding Yoon's martial law decree. Yoon's authoritarian move involved deploying hundreds of heavily armed troops to the National Assembly and election commission offices in what prosecutors described as an illegal attempt to shut down the legislature and arrest political opponents and election officials. That sparked calls to strengthen civilian control over the military, and Lee promised during his election campaign to appoint a defense minister with a civilian background. Since a 1961 coup that brought military dictator Park Chung-hee to power, all of South Korea's defense ministers have come from the military — a trend that continued even after the country's democratization in the late 1980s. While Ahn will face a legislative hearing, the process is likely to be a formality, since the Democrats hold a comfortable majority in the National Assembly and legislative consent isn't required for Lee to appoint him. Among Cabinet appointments, Lee only needs legislative consent for prime minister, Seoul's nominal No. 2 job. 'As the first civilian Minister of National Defense in 64 years, he will be responsible for leading and overseeing the transformation of the military after its mobilization in martial law,' Kang Hoon-sik, Lee's chief of staff, said in a briefing. Ahn was among 11 ministers nominated by Lee on Monday, with longtime diplomat Cho Hyun selected as foreign minister and five-term lawmaker Chung Dong-young returning for another stint as unification minister — a position he held from 2004 to 2005 as Seoul's point man for relations with North Korea.
The Hill
11 minutes ago
- The Hill
Russian attacks on Ukraine kill at least 9 and injure over a dozen
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine's capital overnight killed at least six people and injured others, according to local officials, as rescue workers and firefighters sought to remove people they believed trapped under debris in a partially collapsed apartment building. Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian short-range drone attack killed two people and wounded 10 more in the Chernihiv region late Sunday night, authorities said. According to the regional administration head, Viacheslav Chaus, three children were among the wounded. Another person was killed and eight wounded overnight in the city of Bila Tserkva, around 85 kilometers (53 miles) southwest of the capital. The strikes came nearly a week after a combined Russian attack on Ukraine last Tuesday killed 28 people in Kyiv, 23 of them in a residential building that collapsed after sustaining a direct hit by a missile. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called that attack one of the biggest bombardments of the war, now in its fourth year. In the early hours of Monday, drones and missiles hit residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure in numerous districts across Kyiv, emergency services said, with the most severe damage occurring in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where one section of a five-story apartment building collapsed. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said six people were confirmed dead in the Shevchenkivskyi district. Ten others, including a pregnant woman, were rescued from a nearby high-rise that also sustained heavy damage in the blast. Dozens of vehicles, some burned out and others mangled by flying debris from the blast, formed a snarl in the courtyard in front of the building, which had collapsed down to the second floor. Onlookers, some wrapped in blankets, watched tearfully as the cleanup operation took place. Dozens of volunteers worked to remove broken glass, downed tree branches and other debris. Klitschko told reporters from the scene that 'we very much hope that the death toll will not increase,' but that rescue workers were still searching the collapsed building for further casualties. Russia fired a total of 352 exploding drones and decoys overnight, Ukraine's air force said. Russia also launched 11 ballistic missiles and five cruise missiles. Air defenses intercepted or jammed 339 drones and 15 missiles before they could reach their targets, the statement said. Meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 23 Ukrainian drones overnight into Monday. ___ Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at
Newsweek
16 minutes ago
- Newsweek
'Pandora's Box': Russia Issues New Warning to Trump Over Iran
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Russia accused the U.S. of having "opened a Pandora's box" with its strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead on Saturday, June 21, for the U.S. to bomb three Iranian nuclear sites, including the Fordow uranium enrichment plant buried deep in a mountain. The strikes involved the U.S. directly in Israel's ongoing war against Iran. Israel and the U.S. acted to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran said it does not seek to build a nuclear bomb and that its facilities are for nuclear energy. At a United Nations Security Council meeting on Sunday, June 22, Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said that Washington "yet again demonstrated its complete contempt for the position of the international community." "Washington reasserted that, to further the interests of its Israeli ally, it's prepared not only to turn a blind eye to the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinian women, children, and older persons but also to gamble with the safety and well-being of humanity as a whole," Nebenzia said, referring to the war in Gaza. "Through their actions, the US has opened a Pandora's box. No one knows what new catastrophes and suffering it will bring." Iran has vowed to respond forcefully and said U.S. targets in the region are now legitimate as a consequence of the strikes. It also warned of a regional war. This is a developing article. Updates to follow.
