No Other Land, a documentary created by a Palestinian-Israeli collective, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature on Sunday, drawing global attention to the violence and destruction inflicted on Palestinian land by Israeli settlers and its armed forces.
The film had already gained significant recognition, winning the Best Documentary Award at the 74th Berlinale in Germany last year. It was also honoured in the Panorama Audience Awards category, where its creators received a €40,000 cash prize from German broadcaster RBB.
For half a decade, Palestinian activist Basel Adra documented the destruction of his community in Masafer Yatta under Israeli occupation, forming an unexpected alliance with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, who sought to support his cause.
During his acceptance speech on February 25, 2024, co-director Yuval Abraham highlighted the deep inequalities between them:
“We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life, and he cannot control. There is a different path — a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people,” Abraham said.
“And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” he added.
Basel Adra used his speech to call on Germany to change its policies on Israel and Gaza, saying:
“I am here celebrating this award, but it is difficult to celebrate when tens of thousands of people in Gaza are being killed by Israel. Since I am in Berlin, I ask one thing of Germany: respect the UN’s calls and stop sending weapons to Israel.”
In addition to their cinematic success, Adra and Abraham were awarded the Anna Politkovskaya–Arman Soldin Journalism Courage Prize in France last year.
According to IMDb, No Other Land has won 68 awards and received 32 nominations so far, including honors from the European Film Awards, BAFTA Awards, and the Belfast Film Festival.
Chronicler of destruction in Masafer Yatta
The film presents a raw and unfiltered look at Israel’s oppression of Palestinians, combining footage of demolished homes, personal archives, news videos, and dialogues between Israelis and Palestinians.
It captures Israeli soldiers carrying out destruction as if it were routine, revealing how armed settlers, with state backing, operate in an organized manner to uproot Palestinian communities.
Shot over five years, No Other Land provides a firsthand account of life under occupation.
Viewers witness Israeli forces filling Palestinian water wells with cement under the pretext of lacking permits, cutting water pipes, and bulldozing schools.
The film exposes the Israeli military’s unlawful demolitions, the daily struggles of Palestinians, and their resistance against violence.
At the same time, it explores the unlikely friendship between Adra and Abraham, showing how peaceful coexistence could be possible in the future.
US avoids airing the documentary
Despite being the highest-grossing Oscar-nominated documentary, No Other Land has struggled to secure distribution in the United States. Major studios and streaming platforms have declined to pick it up, and no distributor has agreed to a nationwide release.
The film’s co-director, Yuval Abraham, told The New York Times on February 19 that many people in the US have been asking where they can watch it.
In response, the filmmakers decided to take matters into their own hands, arranging an independent theatrical release in around 100 cinemas nationwide.
This comes at a time when Palestinian narratives are increasingly being sidelined in US media.
Just last year, Netflix removed 24 Palestinian films from its archive, deliberately suppressing Palestinian voices.
No Other Land’s success comes against the backdrop of escalating Israeli military violence in the occupied West Bank.
Since the Gaza ceasefire, Israeli forces have killed dozens of Palestinians in the West Bank and displaced over 40,000 people.
Home to about three million Palestinians and over 500,000 Israeli settlers, the West Bank has seen rapid settlement expansion, particularly under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Although the 1993 Oslo Accords called for a freeze on settlement construction — deemed illegal under international law — successive Israeli governments have continued building, further eroding the prospect of a two-state solution.
The settlement drive has accelerated in recent years, especially after Donald Trump took office in 2017.
Since then, Israeli authorities have announced plans for even more settlements, cementing the occupation and making Palestinian statehood an ever-distant possibility.
