Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal spends a night in detention after an attack near his home in Susiya, a village in the occupied West Bank. Israeli settlers allegedly storm the village on Monday evening, triggering violence that left several Palestinians injured.
Ballal, 36, steps outside his home to protect his family when settlers came to confront him. His wife, Lamia Ballal, recalls the terrifying scene. “I heard him scream, ‘I’m dying.’ Three men in uniform beat him with gun butts while another man, in civilian clothes, appeared to record the assault,” she told the Associated Press.
Following the assault, Israeli forces detained Ballal. He was blindfolded, handcuffed, and taken to an Israeli military base. There, two soldiers reportedly beat him through the night, according to his lawyer, Leah Tsemel.
Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham, who co-directed No Other Land with Ballal, confirmed the details on social media platform X. “After being beaten and held all night at the army base, Hamdan is now free and returning home,” he writes on Tuesday evening.
The violence erupted during a community Iftar gathering, marking the end of the daily Ramadan fast. According to Jihad Nawajaa, head of the Susiya local council, dozens of settlers descend on the gathering, pelting stones and vandalizing property. “Young men tried to stop them. Eight of us were injured,” he says.
Israeli police arrested three Palestinians during the standoff, including Ballal. His family lost contact with him for hours, fueling fear and uncertainty about his arrest.
Activists and human rights observers report that Israeli forces often fail to intervene in such settler raids. Anna Lippman, from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, says her group arrived at the scene 15 minutes after the attack began. “Settlers attacked us too. Soon after, Hamdan was blindfolded, handcuffed, and led to a military vehicle,” she says.
Ballal’s release comes amid growing international attention on his work. His debut film, No Other Land, which he co-directed with Abraham, fellow Palestinian activist-filmmaker Basel Adra, and Israeli cinematographer Rachel Szor, recently won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
The film follows Adra’s struggle against forced displacement in Masafer Yatta, a cluster of 19 Palestinian villages. Through the documentary, Adra captures the destruction of his homeland. Along the way, he forges an unlikely friendship with Abraham, an Israeli journalist.
No Other Land premiered at the 2023 Berlinale, winning the Audience Award and Berlinale Documentary Award. Since then, it has received top honors at over 60 international film festivals, including the BAFTAs, European Film Awards, and IDA Awards.
Despite global acclaim, the film’s co-directors face backlash. Abraham has been targeted with death threats after calling out “apartheid” conditions in Israel and advocating for a Gaza ceasefire in his acceptance speech at the Oscars.
He has firmly rejected accusations of antisemitism, pointing to his own family’s tragic history during the Holocaust.
