By Sabiu Abdullahi
Israel’s Culture Minister, Miki Zohar, has vowed to halt government support for the country’s national film awards after a Palestinian-themed movie, The Sea, claimed the top honor at the Ophir Awards.
The film tells the story of Khaled, a 12-year-old boy from the occupied West Bank who dreams of reaching Tel Aviv to see the Mediterranean Sea. It won Best Film at the Ophir Awards, Israel’s equivalent of the Oscars.
By winning, The Sea will now represent Israel in the Best International Feature Film category at next year’s Academy Awards.
In a post on X, Zohar lashed out at the outcome. “There is no greater slap in the face of Israeli citizens than the embarrassing and detached annual Ophir Awards ceremony.
Under my watch, Israeli citizens will not pay from their pockets for a ceremony that spits in the faces of our heroic soldiers.”
Reports in Israeli media suggest it is unclear whether the minister has the authority to pull state funding from the awards.The film also swept other top categories.
Thirteen-year-old Muhammad Gazawi, who plays Khaled, became the youngest ever to win Best Actor in the history of the Ophir Awards.
His character is stopped at an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint during a school trip and barred from entering Tel Aviv.
He later sneaks into Israel to try to reach the sea, while his father, an undocumented worker, searches frantically for him.
Producer Baher Agbariya, while accepting the award, said the movie stood for “every child’s right to live in peace, a basic right we will not give up on.”
Zohar, however, repeated his criticism, labeling the event “embarrassing and detached.”
Defending the jury’s decision, Assaf Amir, chair of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television, argued that the selection carried a message of hope.
“As the never-ending war in Gaza takes a terrible toll in death and destruction, the ability to see the ‘other’… gives small hope. In the face of the Israeli government’s attacks on Israeli cinema and culture, and the calls from parts of the international film community to boycott us, the selection of The Sea is a powerful and resounding response.”
The controversy erupted against the backdrop of mounting global condemnation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 65,000 Palestinians, nearly half of them women and children, have been killed since October 2023.
The war began after Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
This week, a United Nations commission of inquiry accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel’s foreign ministry dismissed the findings as “distorted and false.”
The film industry has also been caught up in the political storm. Earlier this year, thousands of Hollywood figures signed a pledge refusing to work with Israeli film institutions they accused of being “implicated in genocide.”