Israeli soldiers bar media from West Bank villages on tour by Oscar winners

Israeli soldiers have barred journalists from entering villages in the West Bank on a planned tour organised by the directors of the Oscar-winning movie No Other Land.

The directors of the film, which focuses on settler attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territory, said they had invited the journalists on the tour on 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.

“They don’t want journalists to visit the villages to meet the residents,” said Mr 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.

About 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 October 7 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and sparked 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.

Mr 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.

He said settlers arrived in Khallet A-Daba on Monday and took over some of the caves where villagers now live, destroying residents’ belongings. The military demolished much of the village last month.

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 Mr Adra, Hamdan Ballal, another Palestinian activist from Masafer Yatta, and Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

The film has won a string of international awards.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East 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 more than 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship.

The three million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centres.