Palestinian co-director of ‘No Other Land’ arrested, freed, after settlers reportedly beat him
Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal, 2 other Palestinians held on suspicion of throwing stones as Israelis attacked West Bank village; IDF: Violence began when ‘terrorists threw rocks’ at Israeli cars
Israeli forces on Monday night arrested a creator of the Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land” after he was reportedly injured during clashes between settlers and Palestinians in the southern West Bank village of Susya.
Palestinian reports and eyewitnesses said dozens of settlers attacked the village, throwing stones at residents, cars and houses. According to the police, Palestinians responded by throwing stones back.
Alongside Hamdan Ballal, two other Palestinians — Khaled Shenran and Nasser Shariteh — were arrested on suspicion of stone-throwing while an Israeli suspected of taking part in the violence was also detained.
The three were released on bail on Tuesday afternoon and taken to a Palestinian hospital for treatment.
The Israel Defense Forces said the violence began “after a number of terrorists threw rocks toward Israeli citizens and struck their cars” near Susya.
Footage from the village showed a masked individual throwing stones and attacking Palestinians, and hitting the car of activists who had come to assist the residents. An activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Josh Kimelman, told The Associated Press that the settlers attacked their cars to make them flee the area.
According to a Palestinian at the scene, a Palestinian vehicle was also damaged by stones.
Four Palestinians were injured by stones, most of them lightly, eyewitnesses said. The military said an Israeli citizen wounded in the clashes was taken for medical treatment.
Breaking: settlers attack Palestinians and international activists in Masafer Yatta pic.twitter.com/Q9FMHjzI6w
— Anna????????️ (@anna_lippman) March 24, 2025
According to the IDF, when troops arrived “to disperse the conflict, a number of terrorists began throwing stones toward the security forces.” Soldiers then arrested Ballal and the other suspects.
Basel Adra, a co-director of “No Other Land,” which chronicles Israel’s demolition of Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian West Bank village in a designated IDF live-fire training zone, witnessed Balla’s detention. Adra said around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform — attacked the village.
“We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us,” Adra told The Associated Press. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”
Adra said the settlers entered Susya shortly after residents broke the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. A settler — who, according to Adra, frequently attacks the village — walked over to Ballal’s home with the military, and soldiers shot in the air. Ballal’s wife heard her husband being beaten outside and scream, “I’m dying,” according to Adra.
Adra then saw the soldiers lead Ballal, handcuffed and blindfolded, from his home into a military vehicle. Speaking to the AP by phone, he said Ballal’s blood was still splattered on the ground outside his front door.
Yuval Abraham, one of the film’s Israeli directors, posted on X that a “group of settlers” had set upon Ballal.
“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,” Abraham wrote.
In its statement, the IDF denied that any of the Palestinians were arrested in an ambulance.
On Tuesday morning, 15 hours after his arrest, Ballal spoke with his lawyer, Lea Tsemel, and told her that he was filming damage caused by settlers who threw stones at his house in Susya around 7 p.m. on Monday night. At that point, he said, a settler from the area arrived with two soldiers.
He told Tsemel that the soldiers beat him, and that afterward, he was arrested. He also said he and the other two Palestinians arrested — Shenran and Shariteh — spent the entire night outside, blindfolded, and that he was beaten by soldiers again.
“I realized they were attacking me specifically,” Ballal told AP in an interview at a West Bank hospital after his release. “When they say ‘Oscar,’ you understand. When they say your name, you understand.”
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the claims that Ballal was beaten by soldiers. A settler whom Ballal identified as his attacker, Shem Tov Luski, denied he or the soldiers beat him and told the AP that he and other Palestinians in the village had thrown stones at his car. He said he didn’t know Ballal was an Oscar winner.
Located in the West Bank’s South Hebron Hills, Susya is one of many Palestinian villages that have come under increasing duress from settlers from nearby outposts in recent years.
A massive uptick in settler attacks in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught prompted former US president Joe Biden’s administration to issue a spate of sanctions against West Bank settlers, in light of Israeli authorities’ apparent neglect to deal with the issue. The sanctions were rolled back by US President Donald Trump soon after he took office.
Many of the formerly sanctioned individuals live on outposts in the South Hebron Hills.
The Times of Israel Community.