The Mount Hebron Regional Council, which administers Jewish towns in southern Judea, published never-before-seen footage on Wednesday showing 2025 Best Documentary Oscar winners Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra harassing a group of Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the area.
“This scene is described in the film as ‘settler violence and IDF cruelty in Massafer Yatta.’ In reality, it was just a planned, staged provocation and harassment of IDF soldiers in IDF Firing Zone 918,” the regional council said in a joint statement with the Regavim Movement lobbying group.
The activists featured in Abraham and Basel’s award-winning film “No Other Land” are “nothing but paid actors,” the statement concluded.
זוכי האוסקר צריכים להתבייש שהתואר שלהם הושג על ידי התעמרות בחיילי צה״ל שנלחמים על הגנת המדינה. pic.twitter.com/WhohSCIlL2
— Miki Zohar מיקי זוהר (@zoharm7) March 5, 2025
In the IDF body cam footage, Abraham and Adra can be seen joining a group of far-left activists with cameras who attempt to back several Israeli soldiers providing security in the area into a corner.
“Back off! Get out of here! Back off!” Abraham screams at the soldiers, accusing one of them of sexually harassing him and other activists.
“Who do you think you are, talking to soldiers like that? Shame on you,” troops tell him, adding: “Who did I touch? My hands are in my pockets.”
Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar shared the footage on X, tweeting: “Oscar winners should be ashamed that their title was achieved by abusing IDF soldiers who fight to defend the country.”
“No Other Land,” which purports to show Palestinians protecting their homes from demolition by the IDF, won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The film focuses on Israeli soldiers tearing down homes and evicting Arab residents of Masafer Yatta—a group of Palestinian settlements south of Hebron—to create a military training ground for the IDF.
Zohar has lamented the film’s win as a “sad moment for cinema,” due to the “distorted” view it offered, and called it an act of “sabotage” against the State of Israel still reeling from the single worst attack perpetrated against the Jewish nation since the Holocaust on Oct. 7, 2023.
