Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor celebrate their Oscar win for No Other Land, which earned the award for Best Documentary Feature. Getty Images
A Palestinian filmmaker, recently honored with an Oscar, has been released after being attacked by Israeli settlers and later detained by the Israeli military, his co-director confirmed.
Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the award-winning documentary No Other Land, was targeted during an incident on Monday in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. According to activists, masked settlers surrounded Ballal’s home in the village of Susya and assaulted him. His co-director, Yuval Abraham, claimed that settlers beat Ballal before Israeli soldiers took him into custody while he was being treated in an ambulance. However, the Israeli military denied this claim.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that Ballal, along with two other Palestinians and one Israeli, was detained for allegedly throwing rocks at security forces. The IDF said the detainees were questioned by police, but Ballal was freed on Tuesday afternoon.
According to witnesses, the attack began around 6 p.m. local time. About a dozen settlers, wearing masks, stormed the village, smashing car windows and striking people with sticks. Five activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV), who were documenting the incident, said they were also attacked by settlers. They reported that their car was damaged, and some of them were punched and hit with sticks.
Activists on the scene said they notified Israeli soldiers, who initially stood by and watched the violence. The soldiers only intervened as the settlers were finishing their attack on the car. Witnesses claimed the military did not pursue the settlers but instead detained the Palestinians. The IDF, however, stated that soldiers and police arrived to break up the confrontation and detained both Palestinians and an Israeli suspected of being involved in the violence.
The IDF confirmed that a settler was injured and taken for medical treatment.
No Other Land, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary at the 97th Academy Awards, highlights the struggles of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta against Israeli eviction efforts. It also portrays the friendship between Ballal and Abraham, an Israeli filmmaker, despite the ongoing conflict.
The West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, remains a hotbed of tension, with Israeli settlements expanding over the years. These settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this. Violence in the region has escalated significantly since the Israel-Hamas war began in 2023, with settler attacks on Palestinian civilians surging.
