‘No Other Land’ co-director attacked by Israeli settlers and arrested

Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning film No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, was beaten and injured by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to Yuval Abraham, the film’s co-director.

Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film No Other Land, was just attacked by a group of settlers. He was beaten, and he is bleeding in his head, stomach, and he was injured,” Abraham wrote in a post.

He called an ambulance, and soldiers entered and took him. Since then, he continued, “No trace of him.”

In a dusty field at night, a masked settler was seen swinging his fists at two activists from the organization in a video provided by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.

The activists return to their vehicles in a hurry. “Get in, get in”! As the car’s thuds of rocks can be heard hitting it, one shouts and they flee inside.

As they exit, the driver claims that their car window has broken.

A group of 10 to 20 masked settlers also used stones and sticks to pelt Jewish activists’ car windows and tyres to attack them at the scene.

One of the activists who was present at the scene, Josh Kimelman, told The Associated Press, “We don’t know where Hamdan is because he was taken away in a blindfold.”

The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident, but it did not respond right away.

Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers collaborate on No Other Land, which follows activist Basel Adra as he takes to the streets and uses violence to document the Israeli military’s destruction of Masafer Yatta, his hometown.