Israeli illegal Zionist settlers beat up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary film "No Other Land" in the occupied West Bank before he was detained by the Israeli military, according to two of his fellow directors and other witnesses.
The filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was one of three Palestinians detained in the village of Susya on Monday, according to attorney Lea Tsemel. Police told her they were being held at a military base for medical treatment, and she said she hadn't been able to speak with them.
Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the detention and said around two dozen illegal settlers — some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform — attacked the village. Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians while settlers continued throwing stones.
"We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us," Adra told The Associated Press. "This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.
The Israeli military said it detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a "violent confrontation" between Israelis and Palestinians — a claim witnesses interviewed by the AP disputed. The military said it had transferred them to Israeli police for questioning and had evacuated an Israeli citizen from the area to receive medical treatment.
"No Other Land," which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra, both from Masafar Yatta, made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It had also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theatre that screened the documentary.
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Handcuffed and blindfolded
Adra said that illegal settlers entered the village on Monday evening shortly after residents broke the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A settler — who, according to Adra, frequently attacks the village — walked over to Ballal's home with the military, and soldiers shot in the air.
Ballal's wife heard her husband being beaten outside and screamed, "I'm dying," according to Adra.
Adra then saw the soldiers lead Ballal, handcuffed and blindfolded, from his home into a military vehicle. Speaking to the AP by phone, he said Ballal's blood was still splattered on the ground outside his own front door.
Some of the details of Adra's account were backed up by another eyewitness, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
A group of 10-20 masked illegal settlers with stones and sticks also assaulted activists with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, smashing their car windows and slashing tyres to make them flee the area, one of the activists at the scene, Josh Kimelman, told the AP.
Video provided by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night. The activists rush back to their car as rocks can be heard thudding against the vehicle.
Tension has been running high across the occupied West Bank, where at least 937 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 wounded in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the onslaught on Gaza on October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories illegal, calling for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
