Kristof: Violence surrounds detention of Oscar-winning filmmaker
By Nicholas Kristof / The New York Times
Earlier this month, Hamdan Ballal, a Palestinian filmmaker, won an Oscar for best documentary feature for “No Other Land,” an exploration of repression in the West Bank.
Now back from the red carpet and in his home village of Susya in the West Bank, Ballal was detained overnight by Israeli troops last Monday after, he said, he was beaten by an Israeli attacker. The events seemed to underscore the systematic injustice highlighted in his documentary.
The were disputes about what precisely had unfolded, as there often are; the Israeli military said Ballal had been detained on suspicion of throwing stones, which his lawyer denied, and it released him Tuesday.
But what is indisputable is that the United Nations has reported that attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians — often with Israeli troops standing by — have increased substantially. The U.N. documented an average of almost four violent settler attacks a day in 2024, reportedly in which five Palestinians, including a child, were killed. It is also true, of course, that Palestinians periodically attack settlers and troops, mostly by rock throwing.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/kristof-violence-surrounds-detention-of-oscar-winning-filmmaker/