No Other Land (لا أرض أخرى)

Guys, the army is surrounding the village.

Basel where are you?

Basel, come home quickly.

Slowly.

Something is about to happen.

Come here!

Come fast!

What is happening people?

The soldiers are pointing at a map.

I'm five years old.

My first memory.

A light woke me up.

This was my father's first arrest.

I'm seven years old.

The first protest I remember.

This is my land.

I sat in the field with my mother.

This is my grandfather.

And this is my father.

Daddy!

That time, I began to realize

my parents were activists.

You're under arrest, don't move.

I would think:

My father is invincible.

Today, his gas station is the center of his life.

He built it under our house.

To the sheep? Let's go.

- Daa! - Daa!

- Daa! - Daa!

Little Elias. My brother's son.

- What? - Daa.

He says a lot with just one sound.

- Elias. - Daa!

When I was a boy like him,

People around me started to film.

My name is Basel. I herd sheep.

Every day at 2pm in my village.

Masafer Yatta is the community I grew up in.

We're a community of 20 small villages

on the West Bank mountains.

I started filming, when we started to end.

1,000 Palestinians from 8 villages

in the Occupied Southern West Bank could be facing eviction

thanks to a ruling by Israel's supreme court.

More than 1,000 Palestinians could soon be evicted from their homes.

Masafer Yatta in the Southern West Bank.

They face one of the single biggest expulsion decisions.

Since the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories

began in 1967.

Yes.

Hurry up, get the car, they might destroy my village.

- Basel? - Where are the cameras?

Maybe under the mirror. Where are you going?

There it is.

- Eat something before you go. - No. I have to run.

Come quick.

You come to destroy our homes?

Don't fear my dear, they will leave soon.

They won't stay with us for long.

Curse them.

- The girls are still in the bedroom. - Stay back.

- My daughters are there. - Doesn't matter, move back.

Why treat us like this?

Move! Go there!

Soldiers, stand in formation!

I need air, oh my god.

Don't worry my love.

I don't want them to...

They're taking our home.

What will we do?

Put that in the corner.

Organize our things.

Put your clothes in the cave.

Do you have a place for this?

Put our beds deep inside the cave.

Kids don't go far, help us!

Bring the laundry machine inside.

Are we going to live in a cave now?

Oh my, nothing is left.

They destroyed even the sheep pen.

- You're Basel? - Yes.

I'm Yuval, how are you?

Yuval, please be sensitive with the people.

They asked if I'm an Israeli journalist?

I don't know.

How many homes remain in this village?

Few remain. People go to live in caves, under us.

One family lives there.

- Hello. - How are you?

I speak Arabic.

I speak English, don't talk to me in Arabic.

He's a journalist.

- Where are you from? - I'm from Be'er Sheva.

Nice. So you're Arabian?

No, I'm Israeli.

You're Israeli? Seriously?

You're a "human rights" Israeli?

Something like that.

What do you think about what your country is doing to us?

I think it's a crime.

How could your court of "justice" decide,

That our land will become the army's land?

When did your family start living here?

- 1900. - 1900?

Our ancestors settled here in the 1830s.

They made us strangers in our own land.

What will you do now?

The army wants to take all our land.

Yes.

You talked to the soldiers today?

I asked a soldier if he's ashamed to demolish my home.

He said, that's the law, why should I be ashamed?

We won't leave.

- Who is your dad? - Nasser.

Oh, your dad has a gas station.

Your dad is the fuel guy.

Basel, thanks for the help today.

Welcome to our home.

Come inside.

Sit down, relax.

How are you?

I'm great.

Nice home.

Meet my mother, my sister, and Basel.

We're all one big family, everyone is welcome here.

We'll drink coffee with ginger?

Do you like ginger coffee?

What's that?

- Ginger coffee. - Sure.

When I see what's happening Yuval,

I get so angry I want to throw rocks.

But I hold myself back.

Of course you're angry.

It's as if I turn into someone else.

I can't control this feeling.

Total destruction.

It's your relatives who are doing this to us.

- Where were you born? - In Be'er Sheva.

The place you were born in, you can never forget it.

Am I right or wrong?

- Right, it's impossible to forget. - It's impossible to forget.

So how do they expect us to forget our place?

I believe we can stop the expulsion.

If we are active and we document on the ground.

It will force the United States to pressure Israel.

This might stop our expulsion.

I'll send you a link to my article.

I hope you'll be in touch.

Bye Basel, thanks again.

SHARE NOW

Finish the game and go to sleep.

- I didn't have time to play mom. - You played too much!

Continue tomorrow.

Israeli courts decided to ruin the villages,

And evict the people, so the army

can train on their lands.

Daddy, let's go to school.

Not many kids will go to school today.

The teacher said:

ask your father to take you.

Really? Even with what the army is doing?

Come on dad, all the kids are going to school!

Okay, let's go.

We have grass - it exists!

We have a mountain - it exists!

We have a chicken house - it exists!

We have a house - it exists!

We have... a rock - it exists!

In Masafer Yatta, we decided 20 years ago,

to welcome anyone who stands with us.

Soldiers broke into our home at night.

They said that if we invite Israeli

or international activists again,

they will do something even worse to us.

Can you translate?

I grew up in a home full of activists.

Glimpses into other lives.

My village when I was a boy.

Masafer Yatta is known for its ancient cave homes.

When I was born, the army ordered our removal.

Our electricity is a security threat?

You're coming here to ruin our lives.

They said they need our land

for tank training.

CLOSED ARMY TRAINING ZONE

Our villages appear on maps from the 19th century.

But the army doesn't recognize that the villages exist.

On our land they built Israeli settlements.

To fight the expulsion,

our villages went to court.

A court that isn't ours.

It took 22 years, for the Israeli court to decide:

Masafer Yatta will be destroyed

to become a military training ground.

You stay here.

We will go down to them.

Do you have a camera?

Why?

The army appointed this man,