From left to right: Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, and Yuval Abraham accept the award for Best Documentary for "No other Land" on stage at the 97th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre on March 2, 2025, in Hollywood, California. Photo Kevin Winter/Getty Images/AFP
The Israeli army arrested Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary film "No Other Land," after he was violently attacked by "a mob of Israeli settlers" in the occupied West Bank, reported the Haaretz.
According to the Israeli newspaper, dozens of settlers assaulted Ballal and others in the area of Sousiya, in the southern West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967. Ballal, who was injured in the attack, was placed in an ambulance for treatment. However, Israeli soldiers reportedly removed him from the vehicle and arrested him upon their arrival.
Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, another co-director of the film, condemned this aggression on X, stating "A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal."
"They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called and took him. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called and took him. No sign of him since," he wrote on X.
The Center for Jewish Nonviolence, an NGO opposed to the Israeli occupation, said its members were present and filmed the events. When asked about the attack, the Israeli army told AFP it was verifying the reports.
The documentary film "No Other Land" explores Israeli colonization and expansion in the occupied West Bank as experienced by those who endure it. It won the Oscar for Best Documentary less than a month ago, after being awarded the Best Documentary prize at the Berlinale in 2024.
Israeli Minister of Culture, Miki Zohar, described the awarding of the Oscar to the Israeli-Palestinian made documentary as a "sad moment for the world of cinema."
The documentary was shot in Masafer Yatta, an area in the occupied southern West Bank where one of the directors, Basel Adra, is from. It follows Adra, as he fights against what the U.N. concurs is the forced displacement of the residents in the region. Israel declared the area a military zone, and in May 2022, the country’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the army, paving the way for the expulsion of residents from eight villages to establish a firing zone.
The United Nations and the International Court of Justice have repeatedly condemned Israeli occupation and settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law.
