Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, has been assaulted by masked Israeli settlers and handed over to the Israeli military, according to witness reports. The initial attack is reported to have taken place in the West Bank’s Susya, south of Hebron, where more than a dozen armed settlers surrounded Ballal and began beating him.

According to five Jewish American activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, who witnessed the attack, settlers were throwing stones at Palestinians and destroyed a water tank near the filmmaker’s home. Joined by a group of soldiers, they later chased him to his house and arrested him, handing him over to the military. His car was also destroyed, another witness tells the Guardian, by slashing its tires and breaking the windshields.

Yuval Abraham, who directed No Other Land alongside Ballal and two more filmmakers, posted to X about the attack yesterday evening. “A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal,” he wrote (later clarifying that ‘lynched’ was a mistranslation’). “They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since.”

This morning (March 25) Abraham added that he’s injured, and is being held at a police station inside a settlement. “After the assault, Hamdan was handcuffed and blindfolded all night in an army base while two soldiers beat him up on the floor, his lawyer Leah Tsemel said after speaking with him just now. He's still held in the Kiryat Arba police station.”

Released in 2024, No Other Land was shot between 2019 and 2023, and documents the destruction of a Palestinian community in the West Bank, and the forced displacement of its residents. The film was made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective of artists, and in the wake of its Academy Awards win, many have questioned the erasure of the Palestinian struggle at its heart.

Basel Adra, another of the directors, tells the Guardian that the film’s international recognition could have contributed to a rise in settlers’ violent acts. “Palestinians in the village have been under physical attack by settlers almost daily,” he says.” The settlers’ violence is increasing here. Maybe it’s a revenge for the movie and the Oscar.”

The IDF has denied claims that Ballal was taken from an ambulance by IDF soldiers, and says the violence was sparked by “mutual rock throwing” between Israelis and Palestinians.