What It Means to Make Palestinian Documentaries Amid Genocide

On July 28, 31-year old Palestinian teacher and father of three Awdah Hathaleen was shot and killed in his Southern West Bank village of Umm al-Khair by Yinon Levi, an internationally sanctioned Israeli settler. An activist for Palestinian liberation, Hathaleen recently consulted on the documentary No Other Land (2024, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor), which won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in March. This marks the latest in a series of Israeli and Israeli occupationist-aligned violence on Palestinian artistic expression and livelihood. 

Making a film about your homeland shouldn’t result in the end of your life. Unless, at least to Israel and its western allies, you are Palestinian. Over the past 18 months, the filmmakers of No Other Land, The Encampments, which tells the story of Columbia University's attack on its students protesting genocide; and Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, a ground-level dispatch from Gazan children struggling to do just that, have challenged audiences with a simple question: Why is the world silent in the face of Israel’s occupation and genocide of Palestine? In asking these questions, Palestinian filmmakers suffer violence in all its forms.

From Palestine to San Francisco, and back again

No Other Land follows a Palestinian family living in the West Bank who face displacement after the Israeli government demolishes their home. Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham collaborate across the Israel/Palestine border and cultural-political divide, co-directing and starring in an uncompromising document over roughly four years (all prior to October 7th, 2023) of the Israeli state’s decades-running apartheid and occupation of Palestine. Focusing on the rural enclave Masafer Yatta where Adra and Ballal are from, the film captures Adra and Abraham’s improbable friendship and mutual advocacy for Palestinian liberation. It grounds the film in a palpable pathos that brings to life a crisis often told in abstractions, numbers, and breaking news headlines.

Listed as a consultant in the film’s credits, Awdah Hathaleen helped produce No Other Land with his friends Adra and Ballal.

Hathaleen was deported from San Francisco International Airport by the Trump administration in June of this year. Hathaleen and his cousin traveled to the Bay Area on an interfaith humanitarian mission as activists representing the West Bank, but were denied entry by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials without cause despite having valid visitor visas. Hathaleen’s trip was sponsored by local faith communities including the Kehilla Community Synagogue and the Buena Vista and Los Altos United Methodist Churches, with speaking engagements planned in Alameda, Santa Clara, Oakland, and other Bay Area cities. In June, Philip Weintraub, lead organizer of Kehilla’s humanitarian partnership with Umm al-Khair, said that both Awdah and his cousin “were not connected to any Palestinian political organizations and were committed to nonviolence.”

“What we’re seeing is that even when Palestinians are trying to speak about what’s happening in the West Bank and across Palestine, they’re not even allowed to enter the country,” executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center Lara Kiswani told the SF Chronicle in June.

Bulldozing trees and property in order to carve out a path for settlers from nearby illegal Israeli settlement Carmel, Israeli settlers attacked Hathaleen and his family’s village of Umm al-Khair on July 28. In footage caught on camera, Yinon Levi can be seen firing randomly. Hathaleen, standing some distance away from Levi, was struck in the chest and died later. Hathaleen actually recorded his last moments on camera as well, capturing the moment Levi shot him from his own POV in a video released by B’Tselem on August 10.

Levi was previously sanctioned by the Biden administration in 2024, accused of destroying Palestinian civilian property, burning their fields, and threatening them with additional violence if they did not leave their homes. Levi’s financial sanctions blocked him from any access to the American financial system, including any U.S. property or assets. His sanctions were lifted by the Trump administration in January of this year.

Hathaleen was actively seeking reparative alliance between Palestinians, Israelis, and Jewish advocates in Palestine and abroad, only to be gunned down in his own home village by an Israeli settler a mere month later.

Just two days after Hathaleen’s murder, Israeli settlers returned to the site of his death with a bulldozer to continue clearing a path through Umm al-Khair to the illegal Israeli Carmel settlement.

The difference in treatment is staggering: Hathaleen, Palestinian consultant on No Other Land, was shot and killed, and his body was held for ten days by the Israeli state before they returned him to his family in Umm al-Khair. Even in death, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) imposed restrictions on who could attend his funeral (later only partially lifted), the presence of mourning tents, and his family’s burial plans.

Meanwhile, Yinon Levi currently walks free after only two days of house arrest, despite being caught on camera. No sanctions, no jail time, and the tacit approval of the Trump administration. No accountability.

This is already the second major instance of Israeli settler and military violence to befall the production of No Other Land in only five months since its victory at the Oscars. In March, Hamdan Ballal was the first of the Palestinian crew of No Other Land to suffer a targeted attack at the hands of Israeli occupationist forces.

When an Oscar can’t save your village

Hamdan Ballal stood facing Hollywood from the Oscars stage in March to accept an Oscar for co-directing his documentary No Other Land, hoping that it could mean change for his besieged village. The Oscars were just another fun spectacle for much of the viewing public, but for Ballal the stakes of this televised victory could not have been higher.

On March 24, 2025, three weeks after his Oscar win, Israeli settlers brutally attacked Hamdan Ballal in his West Bank home and he was arrested by the Israeli military. He spent the next day blindfolded and handcuffed on the ground of the Kiryat Arba police station.

"We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us," Adra told The Associated Press. "This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment."

Following global outrage over his assault and arrest, Ballal was released on March 26.

The Academy issued a vague statement condemning “harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints” the following day.

The statement lacked any mention of Hamdan Ballal’s name, or his attack.

How could such a statement be substantial? Nearly 10% of the entire Academy membership including Joaquin Phoenix, Penelope Cruz, and Ben Affleck, asked the same thing, penning an open letter to the Academy’s leadership criticizing its lack of explicit support for Ballal.

“It is indefensible for an organization to recognize a film with an award in the first week of March, and then fail to defend its filmmakers just a few weeks later,” their open letter read.

Several hours after the open letter was published, the Academy issued a second statement, with Oscars CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang writing: “We sincerely apologize to Mr. Ballal and all artists who felt unsupported by our previous statement and want to make it clear that the Academy condemns violence of this kind anywhere in the world. We abhor the suppression of free speech under any circumstances.”

Free speech — unless it’s Palestinian.

The Academy’s apology was a welcome statement of support. However it is difficult to forget how prior to being challenged, the Academy’s leadership opted out of condemning Ballal’s violent abduction, which certainly threatened his “freedom to create, to challenge, and to imagine” that they claim to support. Instead, they opted to cite the “many unique viewpoints” that their Academy membership holds. Was the unlawful beating and kidnapping of a documentary filmmaker a “unique viewpoint” that the Academy felt the need to respect?

Statements such as these reflect a troubling failure to see Palestinians as human.

"...Even though our movie received global recognition, I felt I had failed — we had failed — in our attempt to make life better here. To convince the world something needed to change. My life is still at the mercy of the settlers and the occupation. My community is still suffering from unending violence. Our movie won an Oscar, but our lives are no better than before," Ballal remarks in his post-assault op-ed.

Millions of Americans are questioning the U.S. government’s policy decision to fund Israel’s occupation of Palestine with U.S. taxpayer money — in 2024 alone the U.S. government supplied at least $17.9 billion worth of military aid to Israel. This spring we watched the Oscars award and then abandon Ballal at a time when he desperately needed solidarity. This summer we have watched the U.S. deny Hathaleen entry, send him back to his home where it is facilitating a genocide, and fund his murderer’s government as it illegally occupies his land. As Americans watch all of this unfold courtesy of our tax dollars, we struggle to find ways to hold these powers accountable.

When school fees pay for death

Hundreds of protesters occupied Columbia University’s South Lawn on April 17, 2024 in The Encampments (2025, Michael T. Workman, Kei Pritsker, Watermelon Pictures), demanding divestment from companies with ties to Israel. Five days later, the Columbia College Student Council overwhelmingly passed a divestment referendum voted on by the general student body. Student protestor Sueda Polat explains, “We don’t want our money to go towards Palestinian death.”

The referendum requests that Columbia University divest from Israel and all entities that “engage in, profit from, or support violations of human rights.” This includes Caterpillar, whose bulldozers are seen demolishing Palestinian homes and other civic infrastructure in No Other Land, and weapons manufacturers like Boeing, whose Apache attack helicopters are seen killing Gaza’s civilian population in Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone.

A sobering montage in The Encampments shows clip after clip of Israel bombing every last university in Gaza, until none remain. By funding these crimes, Columbia communicates to its own students that it tacitly approves scholasticide, as long as it's Palestinian.

Major protagonist of The Encampments, Palestinian grad student, activist, and lead negotiator during the Columbia protests Mahmoud Khalil, was born in a refugee camp in Syria. Despite being a green-card holding permanent resident of the U.S., Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) abducted Khalil on March 8, 2025 with the threat of deportation following his involvement in the campus encampment protests. After 3 months of confinement a thousand miles from his Manhattan home at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, Khalil was finally released June 20 after a federal judge in New Jersey ordered the government to release him. Khalil now seeks $20 million in damages against the Trump administration, but he has already been forced to miss the birth of his son with his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, as well as three months of freedom.

On paper, Khalil is the perfect example of how to fight against genocide the “right” way. A Columbia grad student peacefully mediating divestment negotiations between activists within the encampments and high-ranking school administrators. But in cooperating with ICE to have Khalil arrested, Columbia sends another bloodcurdling message: your universities would rather see you imprisoned than allow you to speak up about Palestinian oppression.

Who is allowed to talk about Palestine?

Surely prepubescent children are allowed to tell the story of their lives in Gaza? Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone (2025, Jamie Roberts & Yousef Hammash, BBC), is an hour-long documentary following the lives of four children living in Gaza's supposed "safe zone."

Narrated by an English-speaking 13-year-old boy named Abdullah Alyazouri, co-directors Jamie Roberts and Yousef Hammash (remotely directing two Gazan cameramen, Amjad Al Fayoumi and Ibrahim Abu Ishaiba, from London) capture the Israeli military’s constant violent aggression killing Gaza’s residents. As Israel does not allow foreign journalists to report independently in Gaza, configurations involving Gazans like these remain the only access we have to on-the-ground reporting in the besieged territory. Many of the film’s frames are primarily composed of scarlet and dusty grey, explosive colors of death.

Kid narrators walk us through their daily routines. Endearingly persistent Zakaria, 11, says he must have seen “at least 5,000 bodies” cycle through trauma ambulances as he volunteers for paramedic shifts with his weary older mentor Said. Renad, 10, vlogs dessert recipes as an attempt to eke out a semblance of normalcy under the constant threat of bombs, “I get creative and it relieves my depression.”

Warzone aired on BBC February 17, 2025. Two days after, a disclaimer charging Alyazouri with the crime of being the son of Gaza’s Minister of Agriculture appeared at the start of the program. Why? Gaza’s government is Hamas-run.

Two days later the BBC removed the documentary from its iPlayer streamer following demands from a group of 45 prominent pro-Israel journalists and members of the media.

Critics of Warzone argue that its images are suspect due to Abdullah’s parentage. Not only does this imply that every member of Gaza’s government is a terrorist, it labels anyone in Gaza even loosely associated with the only government they have as a vector of terrorist propaganda — even 13-year-olds.

“When you go on TV and somebody's asking you, ‘do you condemn Hamas?’, they're not really interested in your political assessment of Hamas. They're interested to see whether or not you fall into the liberal world order, the world order that they have decided to expel Palestinians from," Mohammed El-Kurd writes in his Gaza media analysis “Perfect Victims.”

Palestinian documentarians are constantly expected to qualify their struggle against occupation and genocide with grace towards their attackers, but are never allowed to begin the conversation with their humanity.

This is a story about power

Ending Warzone in January 2025, Abdullah says “My greatest hope is that the ceasefire continues, and that Gaza will go back to what it was before, or even better. But my biggest fear is that the war will return.”

Israel broke that ceasefire months ago, committing countless massacres against Palestinian civilians seeking shelter and humanitarian aid in tents.

On April 16, Palestinian artist and photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, the subject of Sepideh Farsi’s upcoming Palestine documentary Put Your Soul On Your Hand And Walk, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza with nine other members of her family days before her wedding. Mere days before her death, Hassouna had just learned of her film’s selection to premiere at Cannes in May 2025.

The Israeli state is killing Palestinian artists and filmmakers with impunity before they can even live to see their films documenting their oppression premiere.

"If I die, I want a loud death," Hassouna wrote in a recent Instagram post. ⁠“I don’t want to be just breaking news, or a number in a group, I want a death that the world will hear, an impact that will remain through time, and a timeless image that cannot be buried by time or place.”

In a change of pace from the Oscars, Cannes Jury President Juliette Binoche delivered a powerful speech at the festival condemning Fatima Hassouna’s death on the opening day of the festival. However, even within this condemnation of Fatima’s death, Binoche did not name Fatima’s killer: the Israeli army. This fear of naming criminals to account ultimately harms documentary filmmaking; this culture of fear silences people whose stories need to be told, which should be the whole point.

“This is a story about power,” Adra narrates in No Other Land. In a film so stricken with grief and loss, it is remarkable to see Adra and Abraham discuss the daily reality of losing power, whether that means rights, property, dignity, or even lives — and still continue to maintain hope that documenting and broadcasting the reality of Palestinian life will make a difference and bring change.

While these documentaries feature diverse filmmaking teams from a variety of nations, it is notable that only their Palestinian crew members have been beaten, arrested, publicly slandered, shot, bombed, and killed. The Israeli military and government, Israeli settlers, both the Biden and Trump administrations, Netanyahu, the pro-Israeli occupation western media — these powers are constantly threatening peace and freedom for Palestinians around the world, and for Palestine. The effect is an all-encompassing coercion of silence.

As these powers commit genocide, apartheid, and famine in Palestine, Palestinian filmmakers risk their lives merely to document them. Their work is more than documentary; defying censorship, the documentarians themselves become part of the broader struggle for Palestinian freedom.

Should you be willing to die to make a movie about your homeland? It isn’t fair to ask Palestinians to risk their lives just to document their oppression. And it is only right that as allies we oppose our governments’ financing of this oppression. Students, protesters, and filmmakers across the globe are left with no choice but to demand that the U.S. government stop financing Palestinian oppression, whether those powers like it or not. Palestinians can’t keep dying before they listen.

The films discussed in this piece exist within a broader canon of films made by Palestinians and those in solidarity with them. More films from and about Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation can be found in the Palestine Film Index, a curated catalogue of Palestinian resistance cinema complete with descriptions and viewing links.