Jerusalem, 14 Sept

Palestinian Oscar-winning director Basel Adra said Israeli soldiers raided his West Bank home on Saturday, searching for him and going through his wife’s phone while his nine-month-old daughter was inside.

Adra told The Associated Press that Israeli settlers had attacked his village, injuring two of his brothers and a cousin, whom he accompanied to the hospital. While there, family members informed him that nine soldiers had stormed his home, asking his wife for his whereabouts and briefly detaining one of his uncles.

As of Saturday night, Adra said he could not return home because soldiers were blocking the village entrance, and he feared detention.

Israel’s military said soldiers were in the village after Palestinians threw rocks, injuring two Israeli civilians, and that its forces were searching the area and questioning residents.

Adra, a journalist and filmmaker, has chronicled settler violence in Masafer Yatta, southern West Bank, where he was born. He said that since winning the Oscar, he and his co-directors have been increasingly targeted. “Even if you are just filming the settlers, the army comes and chases you, searches your house. The whole system is built to attack us, to terrify us,” he said, describing Saturday’s events as “horrific.”

Co-director Yuval Abraham expressed concern, noting a familiar pattern of settlers attacking villages, followed by army raids on Palestinians.

Adra’s documentary 'No Other Land', which won an Oscar for Best Documentary this year, follows Masafer Yatta residents resisting Israeli military demolitions. The film, a joint Palestinian-Israeli production, has won multiple international awards but faced backlash in Israel and abroad.

Masafer Yatta, designated a live-fire training zone by Israel in the 1980s, is home to around 1,000 largely Arab Bedouin residents. Palestinians face ongoing demolitions of homes and olive orchards, while settlers have expanded across the West Bank, complicating prospects for a two-state solution.