Oscar-winning Palestinian director is attacked by Jewish settlers and arrested, activists say

By Canadian Press on March 24, 2025.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli settlers beat up one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning film “ No Other Land ” in the occupied West Bank on Monday, and he was then detained by the Israeli military, activists on the scene said.

Dozens of settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area, destroying property, said the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence.

They attacked Hamdan Ballal, one of the documentary’s co-directors, leaving his head bleeding, the activists said. As he was being treated in an ambulance, soldiers detained him and a second Palestinian man, the group said. It said his whereabouts were now unknown.

“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of Masafer Yatta to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. It has two Palestinian co-directors, Ballal and Basel Adra, both residents of Masafar Yatta, and two Israeli directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

The Associated Press