Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar-winning Israel-Palestine documentary “No Other Land,” is missing after being attacked, according to a series of posts on X from co-director Yuval Abraham.
“A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film ‘No Other Land,'” Abraham posted on X Monday. “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 Associated Press reported that activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence saw Ballal get beat up by Israeli settlers on the scene, describing how: “A group of 10-20 masked settlers attacked him and other Jewish activists with stones and sticks, and smashed their car windows and slashed their tires.”
Witnesses reported that Ballal was attacked in his home village of Susya, with a majority of the masked people being teenagers with sticks and knives, according to Joseph Kaplan Weinger.
according to lawyer Leah Zemel, Three Palestinians were also detained and taken into a military center ahead of questioning. A reason for their detention was not given.
Abraham also shared a video depicting a masked man pushing another individual, before the individuals filming flee back to their vehicle. Variety has reached out to reps from Cinetic Media for comment.
The International Documentary Association (IDA) shared a statement in response to the attack: “We demand Ballal’s immediate release and that his family and community be informed about his condition, location, and the justification for his detention.”
The alleged attack comes just three weeks after “No Other Land” won the Academy Award for best documentary. On stage, directors Abraham, Ballal, Basel Adra, and Rachel Szor took the opportunity to call attention to the destruction happening in Gaza.
“We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,” said Adra, a Palestinian journalist and activist. “About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope to my daughter that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now. … ‘No Other Land’ reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist.”
Made as an Israeli-Palestinian collective, “No Other Land” follows a Palestinian family living in the West Bank as their home gets destroyed by the Israeli government and they face displacement. But amidst the dire conditions, Adra and Abraham, an Israeli journalist, form an unexpected friendship and work together to document the story.
The film first premiered at last year’s Berlin Film Festival, where it earned top documentary jury and audience prizes. The documentary continued to earn critical acclaim attention on the fall festival circuit, where it played at the Toronto, Vancouver, and New York film festivals. Despite this, the film still doesn’t have a U.S. distributor, leading the filmmakers to self-release the film in New York City on January 31 and Los Angeles on February 7.
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