Israeli forces invade W. Bank village hours after Oscar nod

Israeli forces attacked the occupied West Bank village of Masafer Yatta just hours after a documentary focusing on its plight was nominated for an Oscar at the 97th Academy Awards.

Nadav Weiman, the executive director for Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organisation raising awareness on the impacts of military occupation, said the attack happened just two hours after the film ‘No Other Land’ was nominated for Best Documentary.

“From my experience as a former IDF soldier, this looks a lot like the common IDF command: demonstrating our presence,” he wrote in a post on X.

The film, produced by Palestinian journalist Basel Adra and Israeli film director Yuval Abraham centres around the struggles of Adra as he tries to save his occupied West Bank village from Jewish settlers.

Online, many condemned the ongoing attacks on the village following the nomination.

“Very likely the Israeli army (and the settlers) are going to try to punish Basel and his community for the Oscar nomination. It is imperative that correspondents in the region do their job and report on the retaliation,” one person commented.

The Masafer Yatta village, which the film focuses on, has long been attacked by Israeli settlers and its residents forcibly expelled in what has been heavily condemned by human rights groups. 

Earlier this year, Adra told reporters he would love to see the film earn an Oscar nomination to help spread awareness on the issues it highlights and also to help find a US distributor for it. 

“I really advise everybody in the US who has heard about No Other Land to watch it. It’s important for people to watch it so they can understand what’s going on” he told Variety.

“…Don’t just watch it to feel sad or sorry for us, but join our struggle and our movement and take action. Especially in the US which, as a country, is a main player in what’s going on,” he said.

He also called on people to take action and join the campaign to save Palestinian residents from being pushed out of their homes and their land forcibly taken.

“Americans have a responsibility, I believe, and I hope that they watch it and move in the right direction and take any action they can in order to help us change,” he said.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, there has been a spike in attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with violent settlers increasingly targeting farmers with impunity.

The residents of Masafer Yatta have endured intense Israeli state and settler violence for decades, ever since Israel declared part of the region a closed military zone in the 1980s.