JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli settlers beat one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning film “No Other Land” in occupied West Bank on Monday, and he was later detained by the Israeli army, according to Jewish activists on the scene.
Dozens of settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, destroying properties, reported the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence.
Hamdan Ballal was attacked, one of the co-directors of the joint Palestinian-Israeli production, leaving his head bleeding, activists reported. While he was being treated in an ambulance, Israeli soldiers detained him and a second Palestinian man, according to the group.
What did the Israeli government say about the whereabouts of Hamdan Ballal?
The Israeli army said it was investigating the incident, but did not comment immediately.
Josh Kimelman, one of the activists who was at the scene, told The Associated Press: “We don’t know where Hamdan is because they took him away blindfolded.”
A group of between 10 and 20 masked settlers attacked him and other Jewish activists with stones and sticks, breaking the car windows and puncturing the tires.
A video provided by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence showed a masked settler pushing and punching two activists from the group in a dusty field at night. The activists ran to their car. “Get in, get in!” one of them shouted, and they crouched inside as the sounds of stones being thrown could be heard. “They broke the car window,” the driver said as they drove away.
“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for Best Documentary, tells the story of the residents of Masafer Yatta fighting to stop the Israeli army from demolishing their villages. It has two Palestinian co-directors, Ballal and Basel Adra, both residents of Masafer Yatta, and two Israeli directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a series of awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also sparked anger in Israel and abroad, such as when Miami Beach briefly proposed to terminate the lease of a cinema screening the documentary.
Where is Masafer Yatta?
The Israeli army designated Masafer Yatta, in the southern West Bank, as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered the expulsion of the residents, mostly Arab Bedouins. Around 1,000 residents have remained in place, but soldiers regularly enter to demolish homes, tents, water tanks, and olive groves, and Palestinians fear that total expulsion could occur at any time.
Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state and consider the growth of settlements a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built more than 100 settlements that now house over 500,000 Israeli citizens. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, and the Palestinian Authority, backed by the West, administers the population centers.
During the Gaza war, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during large-scale military operations and attacks by settlers on Palestinians have also increased. Attacks by Palestinians on Israelis have also escalated.
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