On the evening of March 14, we set out 350 chairs in the courtyard of the school in At-Tuwani, in the Masafer Yatta region in the West Bank, preparing for a larger crowd than had ever been assembled in the small village. As people arrived — three full buses from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, with dozens more people coming by car — the seats filled up quickly, with many having to sit on the ground or stand in the back to get a peek.
These guests had come to see the film, “No Other Land,” produced by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, and myself. The film was our attempt to give people insight into the realities of our lives in Masafer Yatta: the constant onslaught of Israeli state and settler violence, and the toll it takes on us; everyday moments and interactions with our families; and the complicated relationships we Palestinians navigate with those who come here to support and resist alongside us.
In one scene from the film, the mother of the late Harun Abu Aram — a Palestinian resident who was shot and paralyzed by Israeli soldiers while they confiscated his generator — laments the constant presence of journalists and cameras in her makeshift home, coming to photograph her disabled son. They take photos, she says, but what help are they actually offering? What are they doing to change Harun’s, or his family’s, situation?