Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers make defiant speech after winning best documentary Oscar
A joint Israeli-Palestinian team which made a film chronicling the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank delivered a passionate speech calling out injustices faced by Palestinians on Sunday night after they won the Oscar for best documentary.
“No Other Land” tells the story of the continued demolition by Israeli authorities of Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the Hebron mountains of the West Bank where Basel Adra, one of the directors, lives with his family.
The documentary follows the Israeli government’s attempt to evict the villagers by force, having claimed the land for a military training facility and firing range in 1981. Viewers see the local playground being torn down, the killing of Adra’s brother by Israeli soldiers, and other attacks by Jewish settlers while the community tries to survive.
The film also shows the human connection between Adra and the film’s other creator, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham.
While filming for “No Other Land” wrapped before Hamas attacked Israel in October 2023, prompting Israel to launch its war in Gaza, the documentary’s themes are especially relevant during a time of heightened conflict in the Middle East.
Palestinians in the West Bank have faced evictions and the encroachment of Jewish settlers for decades.
Hours before the film’s Oscar win, residents of the West Bank area depicted in the documentary were attacked by Israeli settlers who were accompanied by Israeli forces, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Israeli soldiers detained three people in the area and settlers attacked residents of the village of Khirbet Asfi, in Masafer Yatta, throwing stones, destroying solar panels and damaging water tanks, Wafa reported, citing the head of the Susiya village council Jihad Nawajaa.
Images obtained by CNN showed several solar panels and a home security camera which appeared to have been damaged by stones. CNN has contacted Israel’s military for comment.
‘Harsh reality’
Israel has ramped up its military campaign in the West Bank, displacing roughly 40,000 Palestinians since late January, according to the UN, with Israel’s defense minister promising to occupy large areas for the remainder of the year.
The Israeli military says it is targeting Palestinian militant groups in the West Bank who have mounted attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. But Palestinians and human rights groups say the expanded assault is increasingly indiscriminate – killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in a manner that is consistent with collective punishment.
“No Other Land” tells the story of the continued demolition by Israeli authorities of Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in the Hebron mountains of the West Bank.
Antipode Films
The filmmakers used their acceptance speeches to highlight the effects of Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Adra said the film “reflects the harsh reality that we have been suffering for decades, a reality that continues until today, and we call on the world to take concrete steps to end this injustice.”
Abraham called for the end of the “terrible destruction of Gaza” and the release of Israeli hostages.
“We created this film together, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger,” he added.
The film has racked up several awards in the past year. But despite its critical acclaim, its creators have come under fire for their comments on the war in Gaza.
High-level German and Israeli officials criticized Abraham after he called for a ceasefire upon accepting the award for best documentary at the Berlin International Film Festival last February. Abraham said he subsequently received death threats.
Adra, a new father, said in his Oscar acceptance speech Sunday that he hopes his daughter “won’t have to live the life I’m living now: always anxious, fearing home demolitions, settler violence, and the threat of forced displacement that we, in Masafer Yatta, face every day living under Israeli occupation.”
“When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are not equal,” Abraham said. “We live under a regime where I enjoy freedom under civil law, and where he is governed by military laws.”
CNN’s Tori B Powell, Leah Asmelash, Jeremy Diamond, Abeer Salman, Kareem Khadder and Lucas Lilieholm contributed reporting.
Source: CNN
Israeli former hostage recounts hearing, on his release, of wife and daughters’ deaths
CNN — An Israeli man who was held hostage by Hamas for 491 days has described how he was starved while in captivity and recalled the moment on his release from Gaza – when he found out his wife and daughters had been killed during the October 7, 2023 attacks.
Eli Sharabi was released earlier this month along with Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy as part of the Gaza ceasefire and hostages agreement between Israel and Hamas.
The 52-year-old Sharabi said his captors had not told him that his wife Lianne and daughters Noiya and Yahel were killed during the 2023 attack. Instead, he learned of their fate after his release.
In an emotional televised interview that aired Thursday on Israeli Channel 12’s “Uvda” program conducted by Israeli journalist Ilana Dayan, he recalled the moment he was taken by the Red Cross to an Israel Defense Forces post where psychologists and a family friend, a social worker, awaited. “I said, ‘Bring me my wife and the girls,’” Sharabi recalled. “She told me, ‘Osnat (his sister) and Mom are waiting for you.”
Choking back tears, Sharabi added: “It was clear that there’s no need to tell. Because at that moment, she had already told me. It’s clear that the worst has happened.”
“I really hope they didn’t feel pain in their last moments. That it happened fast and wasn’t painful. I hope they are in a good place,” he added, his voice breaking.
Sharabi also shed light on the plight of the remaining hostages, including his close friend Alon Ohel with whom he had shared a tunnel and formed an “unbreakable bond.”
Sharabi said hostages were given one meal a day – often a bowl of pasta or half a pita – totaling just 250-300 calories. “We’d cut the pita into four pieces and nibble one slice for 10 minutes, pretending it was enough,” Sharabi said, adding that he dreamed of his mother’s cooking. “You dream of opening a fridge … taking an egg, a vegetable, water. That’s freedom.”
Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told CNN on Friday that the group denies Sharabi’s allegations.
“We dealt with the prisoners in accordance with international law,” Qassem said, adding that Hamas had “provided them with food at a time when there was a famine in the Strip.”
The Channel 12 interview concluded with a plea from Sharabi: “People must understand – every hostage is someone’s child, parent, sibling. Don’t forget them.”
The ceasefire deal has seen the release of 38 hostages held by Hamas, five of whom were freed separately to the deal, as well as thousands of Palestinian prisoners and detainees held by Israel.
The first phase of the truce is set to end this weekend and negotiators are yet to agree on what comes next.
Source: CNN
Facebook enables gender discrimination in job ads, European human rights body rules
Editor’s Note: This story is part of ‘Systems Error’, a series by CNN’s As Equals, investigating how your gender shapes your life online. For information about how CNN As Equals is funded and more, check out our FAQs.
A European human rights body has ruled that Facebook’s algorithm shows gender bias when promoting job advertisements, marking what activists say is a crucial step in holding big tech companies accountable for the design of their platforms.
The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights said in a February 18 decision that Facebook’s algorithm reinforced gender stereotypes by mainly showing “typically female professions” to female Facebook users in the Netherlands and that Meta (META), the social platform’s owner, should have monitored and adjusted its algorithm to prevent that.
The Institute’s decision follows CNN As Equals reporting revealing that Facebook users in Europe were missing out on job opportunities due to gender bias.
The 2023 article was based on findings shared with CNN by international non-profit Global Witness, which investigated Facebook’s job ads and found that ads in the Netherlands and five other countries often targeted users based on historical gender stereotypes.
For example, ads for mechanic positions were predominantly shown to men, while those for preschool teacher roles were primarily directed to women. Global Witness said its experiments in the Netherlands, France, India, Ireland, the United Kingdom and South Africa demonstrated that the algorithm perpetuated similar biases around the world. The non-profit’s investigation led to four complaints from the Dutch human rights group Bureau Clara Wichmann and the French organization Fondation des Femmes.
The Netherlands Institute for Human Rights said in its February ruling that Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd., which manages Facebook ads in Europe, failed to demonstrate that its advertising algorithm does not engage in prohibited gender discrimination. The Dutch body said Facebook must revise its advertising algorithm to prevent further discrimination.
The European Union has several directives that prohibit discrimination based on gender, including in online advertising.
The Institute’s ruling added that “Meta Ireland has acknowledged that the gender data point can be part of the algorithm. Meta Ireland has not refuted that this data point can promote stereotyping via the algorithm.”
A Meta spokesperson told CNN that it would not be commenting on the matter.
Meta spokesperson Ashley Settle previously told CNN that the company applies “targeting restrictions to advertisers when setting up campaigns for employment, as well as housing and credit ads.” Those audience targeting restrictions are in place in the United States, Canada and more than 40 European countries and territories, including France and the Netherlands, according to Meta.
“We do not allow advertisers to target these ads based on gender,” Settle said in a 2023 statement. “We continue to work with stakeholders and experts across academia, human rights groups and other disciplines on the best ways to study and address algorithmic fairness.” Meta did not respond to questions from CNN at the time about how the algorithm that runs its ad system is trained. In a 2020 blog post about its ad delivery system, Facebook said ads are shown to users based on a variety of factors, including “behavior on and off” the platform.
Berty Bannor of Bureau Clara Wichmann celebrated the Dutch institute’s decision, telling CNN that the ruling was significant.
“Today is a great day for Dutch Facebook users, who have an accessible mechanism to hold multinational tech companies such as Meta accountable and ensure the rights they enjoy offline are upheld in the digital space,” Bannor said.
“I see this as a first step in showing that anti-discrimination laws apply just as much to big tech companies as they do to the offline world,” she added.
Rosie Sharpe, Senior Campaigner on Digital Threats at Global Witness, said the ruling “marks an important step towards holding Big Tech accountable for how they design their services and the discriminatory impact their algorithms can have on people.”
“We hope this ruling can be used as a springboard for further action, in Europe and beyond,” she added.
While the decision by the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights is not legally binding, experts say that, if the case is further escalated, a court will be required to consider the Institute’s findings.
Dutch lawyer Anton Ekker, who specializes in artificial intelligence and digital rights, told CNN that the Institute’s ruling could lead to fines by the Dutch data protection regulator or orders to modify specific algorithms, specifically those that reinforce inequalities and disproportionately harm marginalized groups based on gender, race, ethnicity or religion.
If Meta does not take action on the job ads algorithm, NGOs might choose to pursue further legal action to stop the discriminatory use of its algorithms, he said.
The Dutch ruling comes as protection of digital rights has been severely undermined, particularly for women and marginalized groups, Bannor said.
Last month, Meta said it would end its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, change its policies on hateful conduct on its platforms and drop its third-party fact-checking programs in the US.
Users are now allowed to, for example, refer to “women as household objects or property” or “transgender or non-binary people as ‘it,’” according to a section of the policy prohibiting such speech that was removed. A new section of the policy notes Meta will allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.”
Previously, such comments would have been subject to removal by Meta’s moderators.
Meta has faced various allegations of discrimination over the past decade, including lawsuits in the US regarding housing, employment and credit ads. As a result, the company has modified its algorithm for these ads in the US.
Sharpe at Global Witness told CNN that it’s “outrageous” the same changes were not applied globally, arguing that algorithms and AI are increasingly impacting everyday life and posing significant risks to social justice.
CNN’s Kara Fox contributed reporting.
Source: CNN