Hamdan Ballals documentary No Other Land portrays the destruction of the Palestinian community in the West Bank

Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian co-director of the documentary 'No Other Land', was injured after being attacked by a group of settlers in the West Bank and is now in Israeli police custody, according to eyewitnesses and a fellow filmmaker. The movie, which won the Best Documentary Feature award at the Oscars in 2024, shows the destruction of a Palestinian community in the region occupied by Israel since 1967.

Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist and co-director of the film, said Ballal was beaten and later detained. "A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal... He has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since," Abraham wrote on X on Monday.

Later, he clarified that by "lynched", he meant that Ballal had been assaulted, but not murdered, adding that the filmmaker is now being held at a police station and that his lawyer has not yet been allowed to see him.

According to The Guardian, the incident took place in Susya, a village south of the city of Hebron. Five Jewish American activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence told the paper that around 15 armed settlers surrounded and attacked Ballal. "They started throwing stones towards Palestinians and destroyed a water tank near Hamdan's house," said one of the witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Abraham also released a ten-second clip purportedly taken from the dashcam of Ballal's car. It showed a group of masked men - some carrying sticks - running toward the car in the night, with one figure throwing a rock at the windshield. Another video circulating on social media shows what appears to be a brief clash between Ballal's team and the settlers.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the clash but without identifying those involved by name. "Several terrorists hurled rocks at Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles near Susya. Following this, a violent confrontation broke out, involving mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis."

The IDF said its forces "apprehended three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at them, as well as an Israeli civilian involved in the violent confrontation." The statement also indirectly denied Abraham's claim about the circumstances of Ballal's arrest, saying that "no Palestinian was apprehended from inside an ambulance."

The incident comes amid long-running tensions in the West Bank between Palestinian residents and Israeli settlers. In recent years, the Israeli judiciary has on several occasions approved orders of forced evictions of Palestinians that affected hundreds of people. Clashes have become more frequent since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023.

(RT.com)