A Palestinian activist who appeared in a Louis Theroux documentary about settlers in the West Bank has reportedly had his home raided by Israeli soldiers.
Issa Amro, co-founder of the non-violent activist group Youth Against Settlements, shared videos on social media of confrontations with Israeli military at his home, and another of a group of Israeli settlers forcing entry to the property.
Posting on X, Amro said: “The soldiers raided my house today, they wanted revenge from me for participating in the BBC documentary ‘the settlers’, after the army left the settlers raided my house, they injured one activist and cut the tree, they stole tools and the garbage containers.”
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council have said that the settlements have “no legal validity, constituting a flagrant violation under international law.”
Amro lives in Hebron, the capital of the West Bank’s largest governorate. In Louis Theroux’s documentary, The Settlers, Amro shows Theroux around the Israeli-occupied area of the city, home to about 35,000 Palestinians and 700 settlers protected by the Israeli military.
The documentary, which aired in April on BBC Two, shows Amro and Theroux being confronted by military as they walk around the area. When the pair are sworn at by a passing driver, Amro explains to Theroux: “You deserve a middle finger if you report about Palestinians.”
“By international law, the settlements are illegal,” Amro said in the documentary. “They don’t see us as equal human beings who deserve the same rights they do.”
In one of the videos posted on X, Amro challenges a group of balaclava-covered soldiers at his house, asking why they have their faces covered. One soldier replies: “You know exactly why.”
A Nobel peace prize nominee and one of the West Bank’s most prominent activists, Amro is best known for his work for Youth Against Settlements, which aims to end the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank.
Theroux, posting on X, said: “@Issaamro who featured in The Settlers has posted videos of his latest harassment by settlers and soldiers. Our team has been in regular contact with him since the documentary and over the last 24 hours. We are continuing to monitor the situation.”
A spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces accused Amro of spreading “false information,” adding: “As the videos clearly show, the soldiers present on May 3 in the Hebron area were there to disperse the confrontation between Palestinian residents and Israeli civilians.”