Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian director of “No other land”, is attacked in the West Bank, say the witnesses

A Palestinian director of the Oscar winner documentary “No other land” He was beaten bloody near his home by Israeli colonists and held by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank occupied on Monday evening, the witnesses said.

The director, Hamdan Ballal, was set in Susya, his origin village, by at least 20 masked people, mostly teenagers armed with rocks, sticks and knives, according to Joseph Kaplan Weinger, 26 years old, who said he came across the attack after the beginning. Weinger is part of a voluntary initiative that provides protection in the vulnerable areas to the violence of the settlers.

What pushed the attack was not clear, but Mr. Weinger, who is also a doctoral student in sociology at the University of California, in Los Angeles, said that the group had come down to Susya, who is located south of Hebron, and attacked the residents of the West Bank while they were breaking the fast during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Some shouted mockery well for the holidays for the holidays while they did it, he said.

Weinger said he started playing the horn in an attempt to warn the nearby Israeli soldiers to the attack, but that the Israeli forces prevented him and two companions from reaching Mr. Ballal’s house.

“The soldiers got up,” he said. “Later, when we arrived there, we saw his blood on the ground.”

Ballal, 37, was one of the three inmate Palestinians, according to the Israeli witnesses and military. Leah Zemel, a lawyer who represents the prisoners, claimed to have been informed that they were held in a military center for medical care in view of the questions, but that he did not know the reason for their detention.

The Israeli army declared in a declaration that “several terrorists” had launched rocks against Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles near Susya and pushing a “violent clash” that involved “throwing the mutual rock between Palestinians and Israelis”. The military said that when his strength and the police arrived, the “terrorists” launched them stones.

Three Palestinians suspected of launching rocks, as well as an Israeli civilian, were arrested “for further questions by the Israeli police”, says the note. An Israeli was injured and was transported to receive medical treatment, he said.

The assault on Mr. Ball came while the Israeli army has led intense raid in the West Bank, in what says it is an effort to repress militant groups. Since January, the operation, concentrated on northern West Bank, has forced more than 40,000 Palestinians To escape from their homes, the greatest displacement of civilians in the territory from the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, the historians say.

Mr. Ballal was among the four directors-others were Basel Adra, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham-in a Palestinian-Israeli collective that collected the Oscar for the best documentary of this month. The film documents the Demolition of the homes of the residents of the West Bank Inside or close to the village of Masafer Yatta, from where Mr. Adra comes from Israeli forces who claim the area for a live soldier training field.

The documentary has captured the destruction between 2019 and 2023 and in archival movies. It was released last year in the middle of the Israeli expansion of the settlements of the West Bank, who were encouraged by the far -right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. With the expansion, a documented increase in the violence of the Jewish settlers against the Palestinians, according to the United Nations Agency for humanitarian coordination, has arrived, which holds a trace of violent episodes in the area.

Wafa, the official press agency of the Palestinian Authority, reported that the settlers had Storced Masafer Yatta Hours before the directors won their Oscar.

Susya was also prolonged Legal battle with the Israeli government on the plans for its destruction and moves to remove residents in an area that Israel has considered an archaeological site.

Mr. Weinger, who spent the last few months in South Hebron Hills, said that during Ramadan, the attacks in the area became more and more frequent. “Almost every day there is something,” he said.

Mr. Adra, the other Palestinian director of the film, said on social media That he arrived in Susya shortly after the violence broke out on Monday evening to see masked attackers who launched stones. The Israeli soldiers then arrived, but rather than arresting the attackers, he said, pointed out their rifles against the Palestinians and began to head in their direction.

Mr. Adra said he dispersed with others from the scene and later saw the soldiers who removed Mr. Ballal.

Chase Carter, spokesperson for Center for non -Jewish violencewho connects Jewish activists with the Palestinians in the West Bank for the documentation and work of human rights, said that five American Jewish activists who went to the scene to document the attack were attacked by the settlers. The settlers used rocks to destroy the car with activists inside, he said.

On social media, Mr. Adra recalled that it was only a few weeks ago that he, Mr. Ballal and the Israeli creators of the film were contacted at the Oscars.

“But we have always known that we should have returned to this reality since, unfortunately, the world is not helping to end the occupation,” he said.

Alissa Wilkinson, Aaron Boxerman AND Natan Odenheimer Contributed relationships.