Palestinian Oscar-Winning Director Says Israeli Soldiers Raided His West Bank Home

Paris, September 14, 2025 (Saudi Arabia Breaking News) – Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra, co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, said Israeli soldiers raided his home in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, questioning his wife and searching her phone while their infant daughter was present.

Adra told the Associated Press that Israeli settlers also attacked his village, injuring two of his brothers and a cousin. He accompanied them to a hospital and said that during his absence, nine soldiers entered his home. He added that one of his uncles was briefly detained.

Israel’s military said its forces were in the village after Palestinians allegedly threw rocks, injuring two Israeli civilians, and confirmed that troops were conducting searches and questioning residents. Adra denied the allegations, saying settlers had attacked Palestinians on their land.

Videos reviewed by the AP showed settlers assaulting Adra’s brother, who was hospitalized, and chasing a solidarity activist through an olive grove.

Adra, who has chronicled settler violence in Masafer Yatta for years, said he spent the night outside the village, unable to return due to army presence. He described the raid and settler attacks as “horrific,” adding, “The whole system is built to attack us, to terrify us, to make us very scared.”

His co-director, Yuval Abraham, said he was “terrified for Basel,” noting what he described as a recurring pattern in which settlers attack Palestinian villages followed by army raids.

No Other Land, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary earlier this year, depicts the struggle of Masafer Yatta residents to resist demolitions and expulsions in an area designated by Israel as a military training zone in the 1980s. The film has won several international awards but has also faced criticism in Israel and abroad.

Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. Today, more than 500,000 Israeli settlers live across the West Bank among three million Palestinians, who remain under military rule with the Palestinian Authority administering urban areas.