Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, one of the two Palestinian directors behind the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was detained Monday in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli military after he was attacked by settlers, according to his Israeli co-director and Jewish activists.
Journalist Yuval Abraham, who co-directed “No Other Land,” wrote Monday on X that “a group of settlers just lynched” his collaborator. “They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding.”
“Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him,” Abraham added in his post, which was shared in English and Hebrew. “No sign of him since.”
Anna Lippman, a delegate for the activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence who recorded and shared video of the attack Monday, told The Times that more than a dozen settlers attacked the Palestinian village Susiya in the Masafer Yatta area, destroying property. During the attack Monday evening, Ballal was “injured by settlers.” He was receiving treatment in an ambulance for injuries to his head, which included swelling and bleeding, when “soldiers came and took him and two other Palestinian men from Susiya,” Lippman said.
“We do not know where he is or his condition,” she added Monday.
The Center for Jewish Nonviolence shared dashcam footage on Bluesky of someone shoving three people and punching one member of the group. The video later shows a person — whose face is covered by a mask — joined by several others, picking an object from the ground and hurling it at the vehicle, destroying the windshield. Video recorded and shared by Lippman shows an alternate angle of the confrontation.
Activist Josh Kimelman, who was also present during the confrontation, told the Associated Press Monday “we don’t know where Hamdan is because he was taken away in a blindfold.”
Abraham did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for additional comment. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces did not immediately confirm Ballal’s arrest.
“No Other Land,” directed by Abraham, Ballal, Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli filmmaker Rachel Szor, is a harrowing documentary that chronicles Israel’s demolition of Palestinian villages in Masafer Yatta to make way for an Israeli military training ground, displacing families and communities. The film won the documentary award at the 2025 Academy Awards.
