THE STORY – A young Palestinian activist named Basel Adra has been resisting the forced displacement of his people by Israel’s military in Masafer Yatta, a region in the West Bank, since he was a child. He records the gradual destruction of his homeland, where Israeli soldiers are tearing down homes and evicting their inhabitants. He befriends Yuval, an Israeli journalist who helps him in his struggle. They form an unexpected bond, but their friendship is challenged by the huge gap between their living conditions: Basel faces constant oppression and violence, while Yuval enjoys freedom and security.
THE CAST – Basel Adra & Yuval Abraham
THE TEAM – Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor (Directors/Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 95 Minutes
The crew of “No Other Land” finished filming in October 2023. It was not a particularly noteworthy time for the rest of the world, but for the collection of villages in the region of Masafer Yatta in Israel’s West Bank, it marked the beginning of another significant moment in history for an area and a people who have seen too many such moments in living memory. The filmmakers – two Israeli journalists and two Palestinian journalists – had spent the past four years filming the systematic destruction of these villages, following a two-decade-long trial in Israeli courts that determined the Israeli Army had the right to evict any Palestinian people from the area, designated as a military training zone. Basel Adra, born in one of these villages to two activists in 1996, now spends his time filming as Israeli soldiers brutally force families from their homes and children out of schools, dispassionately bulldozing any buildings with almost no notice. Adra, along with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, believes that the only way to save the people of Masafer Yatta is to document what’s happening and post it online in the hope that it will cause enough outrage among the public to pressure the United States government into forcing Israel to stop.
Told almost exclusively from Basel’s point of view, “No Other Land” is a monumental piece of activist cinema, putting its audience directly in the shoes of the people living in Masafer Yatta. The most impactful moments are those captured by Adra and Abraham on their phones or handheld camcorders, filming as they either run toward some difficult-to-watch event or, worse, run away from it after the soldiers get violent. The most intense scenes are left uncut, even when the camera ends up on the ground, filming nothing for a stretch of time. One such scene is a harrowing moment when it looks as though Basel will be captured and detained by the soldiers, who have been raiding houses in the middle of the night looking for him.
It helps that Basel is an extremely likable figure. His personal history gives the film something of a spine, using his own story to tell the story of the region he calls home. Basel was only five years old when his father was first arrested for his activist work, and he participated in his first protest at the ripe old age of seven. Basel and his family have been fighting for their right to live in their ancestral land his whole life. Hoping to make a difference, he put himself through university, worked construction jobs, and eventually earned a law degree, which he had never used because of how disillusioned he had become. However, he found his calling back home, where he has essentially become a real-life superhero, always ready to come running with his camera to help wherever soldiers are spotted. His construction background also comes in handy, as residents will do their best to rebuild community spaces and make new homes under cover of night after the soldiers have gone.
As time goes on, though, things go from bad to worse. Soldiers knock out a man named Harun, paralyzing him. Journalists from around the world want to speak to him and his mother, living in a makeshift room inside a cave powered by the portable generator Harun was trying to take back from the soldiers. Still, even that doesn’t change anything in Masafer Yatta. Once consumed by righteous fury, Basel himself slowly succumbs to weary apathy, resigned to the fact that maybe all this has been for naught. Yuval even asks at one point what they want people in the rest of the world to actually do with all the anger. Basel can’t come up with an answer.
If there’s one problem with “No Other Land,” it’s that there doesn’t seem to be anywhere for all the emotions it stirs up to go. The only time Basel remembers the destruction stopping was after Tony Blair visited a school in Masafer Yatta. Appealing to higher political powers genuinely seems to be the only recourse, and hopefully, this film’s existence and its documentation of the brutal, inhumane treatment these people have been suffering on a daily basis for years reaches the people it needs to. It would take a tremendous amount of hubris and an unimaginable lack of empathy to watch the Israeli army systematically work to wipe an entire people and way of life off the planet and not notice the incredible hypocrisy coming from the state of Israel, given the reason the nation exists. The film even calls this out, tracing the nation’s history and noting that while the villages of Masafer Yatta appeared on maps from the early 1900s, they were erased from Israeli maps after the nation was founded.
It’s easy to look at the people of Masafer Yatta and ask why they don’t just go elsewhere, why they would stay in a place where the government has told them they can’t live. In the film’s closing narration, Basel says that every week, another family has to decide whether to leave or endure the many hardships of staying. But, as one woman puts it: “We have no other land.” This is the land they and their families have lived on for generations, and the government of a country where they have no voting rights is kicking them out seemingly without compensation or assistance. “No Other Land” asks a pointed question more powerfully than any other documentary in recent memory has: If you were in this situation, what would you do? If you lived in Masafer Yatta, would you pack up everything you have and leave for someplace where you own nothing and will be treated as second-class citizens? Would you defy the government and the army and stay, fighting for your life even as it gets destroyed around you?
Watching “No Other Land,” it is impossible not to empathize with Basel, Yuval, and the rest of the people of Masafer Yatta. The film puts a human face to the horrific situation currently in the Middle East and dares you to look away. If you can, then you may want to check if you still have a heart.
