Ballal was attacked by a group of 15 to 20 Israeli settlers in the village of Susya, who beat him and targeted his home [Getty]
Israeli police on Tuesday released Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary ‘No Other Land’, a day after he was violently assaulted by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and then detained by Israeli forces while injured and bleeding.
Ballal was attacked by a group of 15 to 20 Israeli settlers in the village of Susya, who beat him and targeted his home, according to eyewitnesses.
Instead of arresting the settlers, Israeli soldiers stormed the ambulance that Ballal had called for help, seized him while he was injured, and held him overnight – blindfolded, handcuffed, and reportedly beaten by both settlers and soldiers.
Photographs shared by fellow filmmaker Basel Adra show Ballal in hospital with visible blood stains, receiving treatment for injuries to his head and stomach. Adra said Ballal had been “beaten all over his body” before his arrest.
The Israeli military claimed that Ballal and two other Palestinians were detained for “rock hurling” and “endangering regional security” during a “violent confrontation” in Susya.
All three were later released on bail and barred from contacting one another. No settlers were reported to be detained.
Co-director Yuval Abraham condemned the incident, calling it part of a wider pattern of impunity for settler violence.
“A group of settlers beat him. Soldiers took him from an ambulance while he was bleeding,” he wrote.
The attack occurred near Masafer Yatta, an area frequently targeted by Israeli forces and settlers, and the focus of ‘No Other Land’, which documents the forced displacement of Palestinian communities from their land.
Israel designated the area a military zone in the 1980s – a tactic widely seen as a pretext for land seizure and expulsion.
Eyewitnesses from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, an anti-occupation group providing protective presence in the region, said the settlers also attacked other international activists during the incident.
“This type of violence is happening on a regular basis,” said Jenna, a US activist who witnessed the attack.
Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank have surged dramatically since the war on Gaza began in October, with human rights groups warning of systematic violence, land grabs, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities – all under the protection of Israeli forces.
Despite international law declaring settlements illegal, nearly half a million Israeli settlers live in the West Bank.
Palestinians, meanwhile, continue to be detained, assaulted, and displaced, while those responsible for attacks on them – particularly Jewish settlers – enjoy impunity and even support from the most far-right government in Israel’s history.
