HEBRON, West Bank: An Oscar-winning Palestinian director and two others have been released by Israel, a day after he was badly beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.
AP journalists on Tuesday saw Hamdan Ballal and the two other Palestinians leaving the police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba where they were being held.
Ballal had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes.
Balla’s wife said earlier Tuesday that he was beaten in front of his home by three men in military fatigues while another filmed the attack.
Ballal and the other directors of “No Other Land,” which looks at the struggles of living under Israeli occupation, had mounted the stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles earlier this month when it won the award for best documentary film.
On Tuesday, the three were being held at a police station in the occupied West Bank. Their attorney, Lea Tsemel, said they would soon be released after spending the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack.
She had earlier said they were accused of throwing stones at a young settler, allegations they deny.
Palestinian residents say around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns and some in military uniforms — attacked the West Bank village of Susiya on Monday evening as residents were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones, they said.
The Israeli military said Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a what it described as a violent confrontation. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘I’m dying!’
Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.
“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”
West Bank settlers are often armed and sometimes wear military-style clothing that makes it difficult to distinguish them from soldiers.
On Tuesday, a small bloodstain could be seen outside their home, and the car’s windshield and windows were shattered. Neighbors pointed to a nearby water tank with a hole in the side that they said had been punched by the settlers.
Film looked at Palestinians’ struggle to stay on the land
“No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.
The joint Israeli-Palestinian production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened it.
Basel Adra, another of the film’s co-directors who is a prominent Palestinian activist in the area, said there’s been a massive upswing in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since the Oscar win.
“Nobody can do anything to stop the pogroms, and soldiers are only there to facilitate and help the attacks,” he said. “We’re living in dark days here, in Gaza, and all of the West Bank ... Nobody’s stopping this.”
Masked settlers with sticks also attacked Jewish activists in the area on Monday, smashing their car windows and slashing tires, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Video provided by the group showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night.
Open-ended military rule
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to over 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards — and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
The Palestinians also face threats from settlers at nearby outposts. Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli forces usually turn a blind eye to settler attacks or intervene on behalf of the settlers.
The war in Gaza has sparked a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military carrying out widescale military operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has been a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.