A woman is heard yelling that her daughters are still trapped inside the building right before the bulldozer demolishes it, pushing through the soldier trying to prevent her from going inside, while the soldier when questioned hardly shows any empathy and in a calm tone of voice says, it doesn’t matter.
It does not matter, this is the most brutal aspect of warfare and even all the atrocities we have witnessed do not take away its impact. The humanity to expect the worst kind of callousness is what distinguishes us from the rest of living beings and helps us persevere in the hardest of times. If screams for a daughter’s life, irrespective of her nationality, religion, or upbringing, are unheard and ignored without any heed, then it is concluded that we are not human, for such a response portrays an emotionless notion towards the plea.
This is just one of the butcher moments on display in the film “No Other Land”, a documentary about the sustained violence against the residents of the region of Masafer Yatta, a group of villages in the southern part of the West Bank, Palestine. One of the inhabitants narrates how his family relocated to this place sometime in the 1830s. It has been their home for a long time.y But Israelis have legalized the area as a military zone and therefore the people who are living there are now illegal citizens. Also illegal is the reconstruction of houses that have been destroyed, as in order to build them permits are needed that obviously they can’t obtain. The residents of Masafer Yatta struggle to preserve their territory, which garners media coverage from time to time, such as when people die (which happens frequently) during the fighting, but the destruction of homes still continues. “No Other Land” which is co-directed by Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers and journalists (Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Balla, Rachel Szor, and others) was someday before the onset of October 2023.
Basel Adra is the child of activist parents and during his childhood lived with them in the warmongering Yatta village in Masafer.
His father being apprehended during a protest is his father’s first recollection and is certainly not either the first or last time he was arrested (Basel remembers). Yatt is where Masafer wants to remember former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair who spent more than seven minutes there. Basel used to be a law student. He has since turned into an activist who is out in the field from dawn till dusk witnessing the demolitions of the village, the sudden appearance of tanks in the vicinity, and watching the bulldozers roll down the hills. Basel perpetually finds himself scrolling through his Instagram on his mobile phone. He has a penchant for capturing the ire many soldiers clad in gear exhibit during construction, the many times they are woken up in the middle of the night and assaulted or, most commonly, the destruction of various buildings. Basel is daring. He dashes towards soldiers assuming a vertical position with his cell phone out and starts to scream. He is his father’s son even though he has lingering doubts about having inherited his ‘energy’ of fighting. He would say, with sadness in his voice, “I began recording when we began to finish it.”
As homes are leveled to the ground by bulldozers children silently cry while women can be heard howling in agony, while the soldiers make sure that everyone is treated crudely, so that they can grab children and roughly shove them through old ladies.
Aren’t you ashamed? This is how the people try to appeal to the human instincts of the soldiers if this was your home how would you feel? In charge of the demolitions is a man named Ilan, who is especially savage in his mirrored sunglasses: aside from looking inhuman, he has a flat and contemptuous demeanor. The tanks depart, leaving behind heaps of debris. ‘No Other Land’ is a very cruel place, but at the same time, it is a portrait of a particularly brutalized community. Each night, the community goes about their broad daylight activities with tactical brilliance. They will subsequently confront the new edifices and raze them to the ground.
Now, They will again rebuild and face the new structures and demolish them. Basel has partnered with the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham to showcase these occurrences. Abu Dhabi and Washington have plans of demolishing the political crimes committed by Israel, but he knows that crime does exist there, and seldom does things change for the better. Masar is bitterly disappointed that the piece he wrote got an abysmally inadequate number of clicks. You insensitive savage, he BB: You cannot imagine me treating it as a normal thing, When the piece gets such criticism, you should expect such worthless consequences xpath The occupation will not come to an end next week”. But there is no question that Yuval’s support is genuine and he does not leave Basel. Their relationship is warm and amicable, even when there is a large gap in expertise.
Basel’s Life claimed through the footage that stretches back to as early as childhood, is nothing but getting featured in an era of Basel’s Early life. It goes without saying that the powerhouse of a father was seen actively taking part in protests with him on his side. It can be claimed that the documentary was indeed meticulously filmed, but nothing accounts for the time-worn clips as they do seem to be chaotic, as they always are. But on the other the more solace-inducing scenes exist as well, albeit being melancholic and poetic, kids enjoying themselves at the swing while the so-called gas station can be seen, a single pump that stands out in the night as it provides light. A gas station is best described as a place one congregates.
It seems that the so-called villagers find trouble for standing by their fellow generators. One specific scenario stands out, a guy who tried to protect his generator found himself shot, but it is at the cost of being paralyzed. His mother tended to him in the confines of a cave. It is needless to say that footages of these relative movements get rather bizarre, with journalists appearing out of nowhere to cover the clips and drive away in minutes. To call this world volatile would be an understatement because forget about doctors reaching out, but people residing in this cave where one of these generators stands would have trouble even reaching out to an anti-war republic that hyphenated. On one specific day, soldiers started to dump cement into a well that was already scarce, symbolizing the extent of hostility.
‘No Other Land’ might be termed as the most humane and raw footage however it is also more dire and more sociological than ever. Enduring a life that is anything but ideal has never been someone’s goal, and the circumstances that surround you definitely give birth to insufferable questions.
What has happened to the children who used to run in the streets, who begged to go to school, who played games on their phones to relax, and everyone else… What happened to the people in this documentary after last October? Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border,” depicting the long-standing refugee crisis in the forest borderland between Belarus and Poland, is one of the most shocking and important films released this year. “No Other Land” stands beside it in equal urgency, hopelessness, and anger.
In October 2023, the Palestinian Mosab Abu Toha was forced to leave his home in Beit Lahiya with his family and was captured by the IDF during an attempt to cross the Gaza border. Already previously, Toha published a book of poetry and gained prominence as a public figure after opening an English-language library in Beit Lahia, named after Edward Said (the library has since been destroyed). Toha was quickly released due to his high profile, which allowed him, first, to travel to Egypt, and then to the U. B. Sometime in October this year, The Forest of Noise, his second poetry book, was released. His poems this time are filled with vivid imagery and stark mourning.
Toha’s work and his New Yorker column “Letter from Gaza’ are quite indispensable. No Other Land, made me think of Toha’s poem titled ” Obit” which concludes with the following lines:
To my shadow crushed by vehicles, shrapnel and bullets pierced its chest flying without wings,
My shadow which is mute and uncared for, bleeding droplets of black blood
From memory, both now and for all eternity.
It is impossible to ignore the pain only imagining it with turnings. Only watch oxidation is necessary, but it is a way of beginning to observe the aching (people). At the Very least, it is not a facin ’t, or believing that accruals at a The Arab’s Republic expects: No Other Land: or“Doesn’t Matter” There Shall Be No Rejection “On The Other Hand”.
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