Who is Hamdan Ballal and why was he detained by Israeli forces? Here's what we know about Oscar-winning filmmaker
Hamdan Ballal, co-director of No Other Land, was attacked by settlers and detained by Israeli forces in the West Bank.
Hamdan Ballal, who won an Oscar for the 2024 documentary, No Other Land, was released Tuesday afternoon by Israel. On Monday, the Palestinian filmmaker was detained by the Israeli forces after being attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, per Associated Press.
Why was Hamdan Ballal detained by Israel?
Ballal was detained alongside two other Palestinians at a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. His face was reportedly bruised, and his clothes blood-stained. Following the release, the trio were driven to a hospital in the neighbouring city of Hebron, per the outlet.
Earlier this month, Ballal and his co-directors had mounted the stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles when No Other Land won the honour for Best Documentary Film. Ballal and the two other detainees allegedly spent the night on the floor of an army base and received minimal care for their injuries, according to their attorney Lea Tsemel.
Tsemel had previously claimed that the trio were accused of throwing stones at a young settler. However, they had denied the allegations. According to the AP report, Palestinians said that “masked” gunmen in military uniforms ambushed Susiya on Monday evening and attacked the residents when they were breaking their Ramadan fast.
The residents said that the soldiers pointed their guns at Palestinians while settlers threw stones. One of Ballal's co-directors, Yuval Abraham, shared the news about the filmmaker being attacked and held in a social media post alleging that he was “assaulted and beaten up” by Israeli forces.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said that they had detained three Palestinians who were suspected of throwing rocks at soldiers and one Israeli civilian involved in what it described as a violent confrontation, per the outlet.
“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,” the Israeli journalist wrote on X. Abraham said that Ballal was “injured and being held at a police station in a settlement.” He added that the filmmaker was “handcuffed and blindfolded” overnight at an army base.
𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘪𝘯𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘸𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘺 𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴.
