Life after the Oscars in the town of 'No Other Land'

The murder of a contributor to the multi-award-winning documentary has devastated the Masafer Yatta community.

The burial of Saif Mussalet and Mohamed al-Shalabi, two Palestinians killed by settler violence in Masafer Yatta.
Patricia Simón / Ricard Garcia Vilanova
09/08/2025
5 min

Masafer Yatta (West Bank)"Last night they came with their horses and attacked us and my grandmother. I was trembling with fear," says Ayoub, a shy 13-year-old boy, protective of his mother, who listens attentively. "We can't sleep; we have to be alert because they always come at night," he continues from the caves where these communities in the South Hebron Desert began living in 1948, after being expelled from lands that are now part of Israel. After the settlers destroyed their house a couple of months ago, the 15-member family has had to return to the caves, as their grandparents did seventy years ago.

"Look at the images; they were recorded by the cameras we placed for protection in every community. The settlers usually tear them down, but at least we have proof; even if it's useless later," explains Nidal Younes, head of the Masafer Yatta council. The infrared video shows a pair of men on horseback attacking the family, who called out to stop them from stealing their few remaining goats, while an elderly woman and her child fell to the ground. This is daily life in Masafer Yatta, the group of nineteen Palestinian villages home to between 1,400 and 2,500 people and the setting for the Oscar-winning documentary. No other land. Last week, a settler murdered one of the activists featured in the documentary.

Cold-blooded murder

On July 28, as has been the case for more than 20 years, a group of settlers with a bulldozer stormed into one of the villages in this town in the occupied West Bank to demolish homes, expel their inhabitants, and expand Israeli control. And as he has done for almost 20 years, Odeh Hadalin, a father of three children—the oldest being six years old—answered the alarm, simply by placing his body in the way and recording the illegality with his cell phone, to try to prevent a new eviction. And as is also common, among the settlers was Yinon Levy, known for his violent behavior, as these journalists were able to verify, whom Levy harassed during the preparation of this report.

In 2024, Levy was sanctioned by the United States and the United Kingdom, along with other violent extremists, for his numerous attacks on Palestinians. Immediately, several ministers in Netanyahu's government came to his defense, and radical groups gave him thousands of dollars. A year later, Levy killed Hadalin with a shot to the chest.. It was then that Israeli forces stormed the village and, in addition to the attacker, arrested several Palestinians and foreign activists. Levy spent three days under house arrest until the police released him, and has since returned to harass the residents of Masafer Yatta. A few days later, settlers cut off one of the water pipelines that supplies half of the village of Umm al-Khair, where Hadalin lived.

Hadalin's murder was a severe blow to a community that has feared for its survival for years. Haitham Ali, headmaster of one of the main schools in the area, described his neighbor as follows: "Odeh was a beloved teacher and activist. Now the occupiers have taken his body, as if he were a criminal. It's necessary. That's why his family has gone on a hunger strike against this injustice." Eventually, the army returned the activist's body, which was buried with non-residents (including journalists) prohibited from attending the funeral.

Peaceful resistance

Masafer Yatta became a paradigmatic example of the occupation after the State of Israel approved the expropriation of 10 of its 36 square kilometers in 1981 to establish a firing range. The military training area was never opened, but the settlers were given the green light to establish settlements and plantations, as well as to terrorize its inhabitants so that, as many have done, they would end up fleeing.

A situation that reflected in the multi-award-winning documentary No other land Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian activist Basel Adra, who, days before his friend's murder, explained his disappointment and discomfort to us in the living room of his home: "I thought that when the world saw the documentary about the injustice of how the Israeli army is destroying our people, our people would do something to stop it. But no one has stopped the genocide, the murders, or the rubble here," he explained uneasily, as several international activists arrived at his home after spending the night accompanying threatened communities. "That puts us in a difficult situation. That the film is successful abroad, you know, that it won the Oscar, that all the media are talking about it, that many people are watching it, and that here the situation is getting worse," he concluded, distressed.

Despite the worsening violence, the population of Masafer Yatta has remained steadfast in its decision not to use violence to defend themselves. Even when, after October 8, 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu's government armed the settlers, urged them to organize paramilitary groups in every settlement and seize as much Palestinian land as they could, their neighbors continued to do what they had been doing until then: filming them and spreading the images. "It's a catastrophe. We go to sleep not knowing if the next morning we'll find our house demolished. We wake up checking WhatsApp groups to see if there are bulldozers nearby. And, repeatedly, they cut off our only water pipe," explains Tariq Hathaleen, an English teacher and English teacher in al-Khair.

The settlers, Israel's spearhead

The settlers have become the spearhead of the Israeli state. in their goal of filling the West Bank with settlements—as recently approved by the Knesset, the Israeli parliament—to unilaterally annex it and prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

"When we participated in the documentary, we knew it would provoke a reaction from the settlers. The director, Basel, was attacked and beaten by settlers, and all the villages featured are suffering more attacks," Hathaleen explains. "But we know that the benefit is greater: a kind of awakening of global consciousness about this region and about the Palestinian cause. It is important to continue spreading our voice throughout the world, and this film does that perfectly," he adds before concluding: "In the Israeli media, they talk about starving babies to death, about destroying... wait: more violence and suffering. But we have already lost everything: humanity, identity, dignity, rights. But we still believe in our right to live in our land, with dignity, in peace and freedom. Hathaleen's uncle was run over by an Israeli armored vehicle, and her brother suffers from severe brain damage and is completely dependent on the beating he received from settlers, while soldiers prevented his relatives from helping him.

As we leave Masafer Yatta, a car accelerates to close behind us and starts honking insistently. He leaves no safety distance and seems like he could crash at any moment. Fortunately, the taxi driver remains calm and takes the first detour without the harassers having time to follow us. "They're settlers. They do this when they see Palestinian license plates. They try to make it impossible to live here," he says.

Just a few meters away is the Museum of Peaceful Resistance, a building that commemorates the community's history with photographs and explanatory panels. "We filmed the documentary for years, never imagining that we would see a genocide in Gaza. We couldn't imagine that the world would allow something like this to happen," the director of No other land before saying goodbye.

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