No Other Land Director Hamdan Ballal Injured Following Attack in West Bank
Ballal was released by Israeli authorities on bail due to lack of evidence.
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Update, March 25, 2025: “After being handcuffed all night and beaten in a military base, Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family,” Ballal’s No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham tweeted on the morning of March 25. The Center for Jewish Nonviolence confirmed the news to Vulture. In a press release, the CJNV also confirmed that Ballal told his lawyer that he and two other men who were arrested, Khaled Mohammad Shanran and Nasser Shreteh, were blindfolded and zip-tied overnight. The three men are in the hospital receiving treatment for their injuries.
Statements by both the Israeli military and CJNV offer differing accounts of how the violence in Masafer Yatta began. According to the CJNV, “an Israeli settler was shepherding right next to a Palestinian home in Susya and was provoking residents,” and after the residents told him to leave, “dozens of settlers, many of whom were masked with some carrying weapons including batons, knives, and an assault rifle, arrived and attacked two homes, destroyed water tanks, and stole security cameras.” In statement obtained by ABC, the Israel Defense Forces claim “terrorists” threw rocks at Israeli citizens and damaged their vehicles, prompting a “violent confrontation” involving “mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene.” The statement also alleged that the same “terrorists” threw rocks at the IDF and Israeli police when they arrived, at which point the three men were arrested on charges of hurling rocks. All three men deny the charges and were released on “lack of evidence,” as reported by CJNV, with Israeli police stating the release is “on conditions that include not contacting other people involved and providing a personal guarantee,” per ABC. The focal point of No Other Land is the ongoing land, water, and agriculture conflicts between Palestinian farmers and Israeli settlers in Masafer Yatta.
Original story published on March 24 follows.
Less than a month after No Other Land won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, Palestinian Hamdan Ballal — one of the film’s four directors — was injured in an attack by about 15 Israeli settlers on the village of Susya in Masafer Yatta, the territory where the documentary was filmed, according to The Guardian. One of Ballal’s co-directors, Yuval Abraham, reported that Ballal was beaten and sustained injuries to his head and stomach. During his transport by ambulance, Ballal and another man were arrested by the Israeli army, and their whereabouts are unknown. Basel Adra, another one of No Other Land’s directors, tweeted that he is with Ballal’s young son in the aftermath of the violence.
“There were dozens of settlers together with the Israeli soldiers and they were threatening us with weapons. The police were there from the beginning and did not intervene. While the soldiers were pointing their weapons at us, the settlers started attacking the houses of the Palestinians,” Adra told The Guardian. “Hamdan tried to protect his family and the settlers attacked him. Soldiers started shooting in the air to prevent anyone to help Hamdan. He was shouting for help. They let the settlers attack him and then the army abducted him.” Previously, Adra reported his neighbors’ house was “stormed” on March 11, not long after the No Other Land team returned from the Academy Awards.
A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co director of our film no other land. 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.— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 24, 2025
The settler violence in Masafer Yatta began around 6 p.m., according to a press release from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Anna Lippman, who works with the CJNV, was on the scene about 15 minutes after the attacks began and filmed the violence as it unfolded. She tells Vulture that Ballal was attacked within his home and that the police were intent on arresting him rather than pursuing the settlers who made the attacks or helping those from the nonprofit whose cars were destroyed; the cause of Ballal’s arrest is still unknown. Not unlike the work shown in No Other Land, which follows the destruction of Massafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers, Lippman says that the Center is one of many international groups documenting its villages. “We are here to leverage our privilege as internationals to mitigate violence and displacement against Palestinians in Masafer Yatta,” she says.
At the Academy Awards on March 2, Ballal said the film, which captures on-the-ground footage of Israeli settler and military violence in Masafer Yatta, “reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist, as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice.” Lippman echoes his sentiments. “Sharing this story and asking our politicians to demand action from Israel is an important way to pressure the state to release Hamdan,” she says. “Historically, international pressure has done a great deal to help the people of Masafer Yatta.”
“Palestinians in the village have been under physical attack by settlers almost daily,” Adra told The Guardian. “The settlers’ violence is increasing here. Maybe it’s a revenge for the movie and the Oscar.”
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