Basel Adra, the Palestinian filmmaker whose documentary No Other Land won this year’s Oscar for best documentary feature, said Israeli soldiers raided his home in the occupied West Bank on Saturday while he was at a hospital with relatives injured in a settler attack. According to Adra, nine soldiers entered the house, asked his wife about his whereabouts, searched her phone while their nine-month-old daughter was present, and briefly detained an uncle. He said he could not return home late Saturday because troops were blocking the village entrance and he feared being detained.
The Israeli military said forces were operating in the area because Palestinians had thrown rocks that injured two Israeli civilians and that troops were searching and questioning residents. Adra rejected that account, saying settlers initiated the violence on village land. Videos reviewed by reporters show settlers attacking a man Adra identified as his brother, who was treated for injuries.
Adra has documented demolitions and settler activity in the Masafer Yatta region for years as a journalist and filmmaker. He and co-directors Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal, and Rachel Szor made No Other Land about residents’ efforts to resist expulsions from a military training zone; Abraham said he was “terrified for Basel” after Saturday’s events. In March, Adra said Ballal was attacked while filming in the same area, intensifying concern about retaliation since the film’s awards-season attention.
The reported raid comes amid a volatile year in the West Bank during the Gaza war, with periodic settler–Palestinian clashes and frequent Israeli military operations. Authorities designate parts of Masafer Yatta as a live-fire zone dating to the 1980s, a policy that residents say has enabled repeated home demolitions, confiscations, and access restrictions. More than 500,000 Israeli citizens live in West Bank settlements alongside roughly 3 million Palestinians under military rule, figures that frame the area’s long-running disputes over land, movement, and security.
