DUBAI: Hamdan Ballal, one of the four directors of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” said that his home was attacked by Israeli soldiers and that several members of his family were injured and detained, according to media reports.
Settler attacks on Masafer Yatta, a cluster of villages in the southern West Bank, had intensified, the filmmaker said.
Ballal said he called the police on Sunday to enforce a ruling that prohibited non-residents from entering the area around his home in the village of Susya, but was instead visited by soldiers and a local settler leader.
The director, who was not at home at the time, said the soldiers raided his property and attacked everyone inside, including his brother, Mohammed Ballal, who was held “round his neck,” which caused him to turn blue and left him struggling to breathe.
Several other family members, including two brothers, a nephew and a cousin, were stopped by soldiers while traveling from a nearby village. They were handcuffed, blindfolded and detained for three hours at an army base, before being released later the same night, Ballal said.
A spokesperson for the army said that “a number of Palestinians adjacent to the area of Susya” were detained for refusing to identify themselves to soldiers but emphasized that “IDF soldiers did not assault them and did not raid their home.”
Ballal said that he was attacked last year by the same Israeli settler who attacked his family on Sunday. He said he was released the following day with injuries to his head and stomach.
“Two weeks ago we managed to get a decision from the Israeli court that the area around my home is closed to non-residents, but the settlers break that order and still come with their flocks almost every day,” the filmmaker said in a statement.
The ruling “was supposed to make things a bit quieter for us,” but the “opposite has been true,” as settlers have “ramped up their harassment and the Israeli authorities have done nothing to enforce the decision and today they joined the settlers in the attack,” he said.
In recent days, Israel has introduced a set of measures aimed at deepening its control over the West Bank.
On Sunday, the government approved a plan that allows Israelis to register land in the West Bank for the first time since the registration process was frozen following the 1967 war, when Israel captured the territory from Jordan.
The move has been widely condemned by humanitarian and advocacy groups.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Israel to reverse its decision, which he said could “lead to the dispossession of Palestinians of their property and risks expanding unlawful Israeli control over land in the area.”
In a joint statement on Tuesday, more than 80 UN member states said they strongly condemned “unilateral Israeli decisions and measures aimed at expanding Israel’s unlawful presence in the West Bank.”
“Such decisions are contrary to Israel’s obligations under international law and must be immediately reversed,” it said.
Legal advocacy group Adalah said it had sent an urgent letter to Israeli ministers demanding the “immediate cancellation” of the land registry decision.
Adalah’s legal director Dr. Suhad Bishara said that Israel’s decision “deepens the gravest violations of international law, including the continued commission of war crimes (settlements), crimes against humanity (apartheid) and the crime of aggression (de facto and de jure annexation).”
