This article has been updated with a statement from the Israeli military. On Tuesday, the day after his arrest, Ballal was released on bail.
Hamdan Ballal, one of the Palestinian directors of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” was beaten by West Bank settlers and then taken from his ambulance by the Israeli military, according to a local publication and fellow activists.
“Now: The Oscar-winning director and journalist Hamdan Ballal was attacked by settlers in the South Hebron Hills and wounded in his head and chest,” Local Call, a left-wing publication with Israeli and Palestinian contributors, tweeted on Monday after 9 p.m. local time. “As he was being evacuated, he was taken from the ambulance and arrested by the army.”
The activist group Center for Jewish Nonviolence wrote on the social network BlueSky that Ballal was assaulted in an armed attack by settlers on the village of Susiya, where the group has long been active. It comes amid an uptick in violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
In a statement sent following this article’s publication, the Israel Defense Forces said there had been clashes in the area between settlers and Palestinians, and that three Palestinians and one Israeli had been detained. JTA has learned that Ballal was among the detainees.
The IDF statement said Palestinians instigated the clash, and that an Israeli was injured and taken to the hospital. It denied that anyone was seized from an ambulance.
“Last night (Monday), several terrorists hurled rocks at Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles near Susya,” the statement said. “Following this, a violent confrontation broke out, involving mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene. IDF and Israeli Police forces arrived to disperse the confrontation, at this point, several terrorists began hurling rocks at the security forces.”
“No Other Land,”which chronicles Israeli demolitions in the Palestinian village of Masafer Yatta, in the same area of the West Bank, won the Academy Award for best documentary earlier this month, with Ballal onstage. It has yet to find a U.S. distributor, which Ballal’s Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham has attributed to its controversial content. Israeli officials have denounced the film, with Culture Minister Miki Zohar decrying it as “sabotage against the State of Israel.”
Abraham posted from the scene of the attack and linked it to the film.
“I’m standing with Karam, Hamdan’s 7 year old son, near the blood of Hamdan’s in his house, after settlers lynched him,” Abraham tweeted close to midnight local time. “Hamdan, co-director of our film No Other Land, is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding. This is how they erase Masafer Yatta.”
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