The Last Play in Gaza blocked in India amid Israel-India ties

TEL AVIV, Israel (MNTV) — The political documentary play “The Last Play in Gaza,” directed by anti-Zionist Israeli playwright Einat Weizman, was denied a visa to perform at the ITFOK festival in Kerala, India, exposing the growing complicity of India in silencing criticism of Israel’s occupation policies.

Weizman said the play, which addresses the physical and cultural erasure of Gaza and the desperate attempts to reconstruct its memory through theater, had been years in development.

After a year of interruptions caused by ongoing violence in Gaza, the production was finally ready to be presented internationally under the festival theme “Voices in Silence.” The Indian government, historically supportive of anti-colonial struggles, was expected to provide a platform for the performance.

According to Weizman, visa officials required a detailed synopsis of the play, effectively turning bureaucrats into cultural censors. Despite filing the synopsis and appealing a preliminary denial, the production faced a Kafkaesque limbo: “Approval in principle” was granted, but no actual visa was issued.

Weizman described the experience as humiliating, having to justify why her call to end genocide was legitimate rather than “dangerous.”

The playwright criticized the incident as more than bureaucratic obstruction, calling it a reflection of the increasingly close partnership between Israel and India. She argued that the alliance extends beyond military and economic cooperation into a “shared culture” of nationalist suppression.

According to Weizman, India’s collaboration with Israel involves not just arms procurement but also the adoption of surveillance and control mechanisms used to oppress minorities and manage dissent, echoing Israel’s practices in Palestine.

The denial represents what Weizman calls a layered erasure: Gaza is first physically destroyed, then documentation of atrocities is suppressed as journalists and photographers are killed, followed by the silencing of artists and writers who seek to testify.

Finally, even theatre attempting to reconstruct memory is prevented from reaching audiences. “This is the erasure of erasure,” she said, underscoring that these dynamics are now extending beyond Israel to global stages.

Despite the blockage, the ITFOK festival in Kerala highlighted the play’s absence, dedicating an evening to it and drawing an audience committed to understanding the political message conveyed by its non-performance. Weizman praised Indian artists for resisting government pressure and refusing complicity in the silencing of Gaza’s story.

“The play was meant not just to tell the story of Gaza, but to expose the mechanisms of erasure and identify complicity,” Weizman said. She reflected that the denial made the play’s central theme tangible: “The visa denial didn’t cancel the play. It turned its claim into reality.”

While the production did not reach India, its story, and the circumstances surrounding its suppression, resonated internationally, revealing the interplay of censorship, occupation, and transnational complicity.