May 4, 2025: A prominent Palestinian activist featured in a recent BBC documentary has faced harassment by Israeli soldiers and settlers, underscoring the growing dangers faced by human rights defenders and journalists in the occupied West Bank.
Issa Amro, who appeared in The Settlers, a documentary by British-American journalist Louis Theroux, shared footage showing armed Israeli soldiers and settlers raiding his home in Hebron. The documentary, which has earned global praise for its candid portrayal of life under occupation, sheds light on the expansion of Israeli settlements and the displacement of Palestinians.
Amro stated that Israeli police threatened him with arrest and warned him against filing a complaint, describing the experience as yet another demonstration of what he and rights groups call an apartheid system enforced in the West Bank. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have previously accused Israel of maintaining such a system in occupied territories.
According to Amro, some of the settlers involved in the raid invoked former U.S. President Donald Trump’s support, suggesting they felt emboldened by his administration’s policies.
Louis Theroux confirmed he remains in close contact with Amro. The Settlers is a follow-up to Theroux’s 2012 film The Ultra Zionists and explores the ideological, religious, and political motives behind Israel’s ongoing settlement expansion. The film highlights the legal and humanitarian implications of this expansion, which international courts have deemed unlawful.
Daniella Weiss, a veteran figure in the settler movement, openly states in the documentary that she envisions the same expansionist model being applied to Gaza. She claims Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports these efforts, which continue to undermine Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
Currently, more than 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, on lands internationally recognized as Palestinian. These settlements are illegal under international law and are widely viewed as one of the greatest barriers to a two-state solution.
Theroux himself encountered hostility while filming in Hebron, where Israeli soldiers attempted to remove him from the area.
The harassment of Amro comes just weeks after another disturbing incident involving Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. Ballal was attacked by armed settlers in his West Bank village of Susya. His home and vehicle were vandalized, and while he was receiving medical care in an ambulance, Israeli soldiers blindfolded and detained him without charge.
These incidents underscore a broader pattern of retaliation against those documenting and exposing conditions in occupied Palestinian territories. They also highlight the increasing dangers for journalists and filmmakers, especially as more than 200 media workers have reportedly been killed in Gaza during Israel’s ongoing military campaign.