Israel releases Oscar-winning Palestinian director after he was attacked by West Bank settlers

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Israel releases Oscar-winning Palestinian director after he was attacked by West Bank settlers

By JULIA FRANKEL
Updated 11:55 AM EDT, March 25, 2025

HEBRON, West Bank (AP) — Israeli authorities released an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was detained by the army after being attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. He said they beat him in front of his home while they filmed the assault.

Hamdan Ballal and the other directors of “No Other Land,” which looks at the struggles of Palestinians 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, with bruises on his face and blood on his clothes, he was released from an Israeli police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. He and two other Palestinians who had been attacked and detained were taken to a nearby hospital.

Ballal said he was held at an army base, blindfolded for 24 hours and forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner.

-snip-

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-violence-settlers-oscar-hamdan-ballal-beb96478a55f42a7058a60ac5be7bd05

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Witness to the violence:

Josh Kimelman also came to help. He's a 28-year-old American living in the West Bank for three months with the Centre for Jewish Non-Violence. He disputes the IDF's version of how the violence started.

"What I know is that there were Palestinian shepherds who were harassed by settlers and then a settler mob started to attack houses here."
...
"There was one who started it and then a mob followed of maybe 15 to 20 masked settlers. They punched one of my friends in the face and neck, and hit another with a stick and shoved her. And they started throwing rocks at our car."
...
"It's likely this attack was planned. It was definitely coordinated. You don't get a mob of 20 settlers attacking in the way that they did without some pre-planning, and so they had specific people in mind."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8yg20yy7mo

And what lovely quotes from one of the attackers, back in August: "This is my land, I was given it by God ... Next time it won’t be nice ... Rape for a higher cause".