It has been revealed that filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning Israeli-Palestinian documentary No Other Land, was attacked by Israeli settlers and later arrested by the Israeli military on Monday in occupied West Bank, as per the statements of two of his co-directors and witnesses.
Yuval Abraham, his co-director, posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Ballal was badly injured and is missing. "A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film No Other Land. They beat him, and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since."
Israeli attorney Lea Tsemel, known for defending the rights of Palestinians, said she was informed that Ballal and two other Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya are being held at a military base for medical treatment and that she has been denied access to them.
Ballal's co-director Basel Adra recalled seeing around two dozen settlers, some of them masked and toting guns, and some others throwing stones, in addition to Israeli soldiers who showed up pointing guns at Palestinians.
Adra told the Associated Press that post-Oscars, he and Ballal faced constant torment. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”
The Israeli military, on the other hand, claims that they detained the three Palestinians after they suspected them of throwing stones at Israeli forces aside from an Israeli individual for engaging in a "violent confrontation" between Israelis and Palestinians. However, witnesses told AP it wasn't exactly how things went down.
The group of armed KKK-like masked settlers that lynched No Other Land director Hamdan Ballal (still missing), caught here on camera. pic.twitter.com/kFGFxSEanY
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 24, 2025
An Israeli-Palestinian joint venture, No Other Land, directed by Palestinians Ballal and Adra and Israelis Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, shines a light on the Masafer Yatta area, whose inhabitants struggle to prevent the destruction of their villages by the Israeli military.
Despite winning several awards in the international circuit, the journey for the filmmakers has been bittersweet so far, considering how attempts were made to oppose its screening and anyone who supports the filmmakers in some places.
Recently, a mayor in Florida sought to evict — and withdraw the grant to — a theatre after it screened the documentary.
In response, Abraham said banning a film will only make more people seek it out. "When this mayor uses the word antisemitism to silence us, Palestinians and Israelis who proudly oppose occupation and apartheid together, fighting for justice and equality for all, he is dangerously emptying it of meaning. Once you witness Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Masafer Yatta it becomes impossible to justify it, and that’s why the mayor is so afraid of our film. It won’t work."
