Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, is detained by the Israeli military from his home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. AP
The filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was one of three Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya, in the occupied West Bank, according to attorney Lea Tsemel, who is representing them.
Police told her they were being held at an army base for medical treatment, but she said Tuesday morning that she had not been able to reach them and had no further information on their whereabouts.
Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the detention and said around two dozen terrorist 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 army also detained three Palestinians and one Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” between Israelis and Palestinians — a witness interviewed by the AP said. The occupation army said it had transferred them to Israeli police for questioning.
“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 has also drawn ire in Israel, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theatre that screened the documentary.
Adra said that settlers entered the village Monday evening shortly after residents broke the daily fast for the holy month of Ramadan.
A terrorist settler — who according to Adra frequently attacks the village — walked over to Ballal's home with the army, and soldiers shot in the air. Ballal's wife heard her husband being beaten outside and screamed “I'm dying”.
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 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 terrorist Jewish 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 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.
Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Israel has built well over 100 illegal settlements, housing over 500,000 settlers who have now Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority administering population centres.
The Israeli army designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and expelled residents, mostly Arab Bedouin. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
During the Israeli war on Gaza, Israel killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank and displaced at least 40,000 people, during wide-scale military attacks, and there has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians.
* This story was edited by Ahram Online.
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