(L-R) Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor, winners of the Best Documentary Feature Film for “No Other Land”, attend the 97th Annual Oscars Governors Ball. Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images
By Olivia Haynie
March 24, 2025
Hamdan Ballal, one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was beaten by settlers in the West Bank and detained by Israeli soldiers, according to a group of activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.
The alleged incident occurred during a settler attack on Susiya, a Palestinian village in Masafer Yatta, where No Other Land was filmed. The documentary, made by a group of Israelis and Palestinians, documents the destruction of Masafer Yatta by the Israeli government.
According to a representative for CJNV, which works with Palestinians on nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation, at around 6PM GMT, an Israeli settler was shepherding near a Palestinian home in Susiya and antagonizing residents. When the residents told him to leave, a group of settlers appeared, many wearing masks and carrying weapons, and began attacking Palestinian homes.
Five Jewish activists who are part of a CJNV co-resistance program in Massager Yatta responded to calls for help in Susiya. When they arrived, their car was surrounded and attacked by settlers.
Members of the activist group told the Associated Press that dozens of settlers beat Ballal, causing his head to bleed. One witness told the Guardian that settlers threw stones at Ballal’s car and slashed his tires.
On Monday afternoon, Yuval Abraham, one of the film’s Israeli directors described the attack as a lynching in a post on X, and claimed that Israeli soldiers took Ballal from the ambulance that arrived to take him to the hospital. A CJNV representative reports that Ballal is currently being held at an Israeli police station.
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.
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 24, 2025
Basel Adra, the films’ other Palestinian director wrote on X, “This is how they erase Massager Yatta.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
