An Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces has been released from detention.
Hamdan Ballal and two other Palestinians left a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they were being held on Tuesday. Ballal had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes.
The three had spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack, according to Ballal’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel.
Earlier this month Ballal and the other directors of No Other Land, which looks at the struggles of living under Israeli occupation, appeared on stage at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles to accept the award for best documentary film.
Tsemel said Ballal and the other detained people had been accused of throwing stones at a young settler, allegations they deny.
All three Palestinians were driven to a hospital in the city of Hebron.
The film’s co-director Yuval Abraham posted on X: ‘‘After the assault, Hamdan was handcuffed and blindfolded all night in an army base while two soldiers beat him up on the floor, his lawyer Leah Tsemel said after speaking with him just now.’’
Palestinian residents said about two dozen settlers – some masked, some carrying guns and some in military uniforms – attacked the West Bank village of Susya on Monday evening as residents were breaking their Ramadan fast.
Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones, they said.
The Israeli military said on Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in “a violent confrontation”. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.
“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”
West Bank settlers are often armed and sometimes wear military-style clothing that makes it difficult to distinguish them from soldiers.
On Tuesday, a small bloodstain could be seen outside their home, and the car’s windshield and windows were shattered. Neighbours pointed to a nearby water tank with a hole in the side that they said had been damaged by the settlers.
Witnesses and residents in Susya said one of the settlers who took part in the attack, from the outpost “Ancient Susya,” has participated ‘‘since 7 October in dozens of events in which Palestinians were attacked, expelled from their land, or had their property damaged. In many of these events, he was also documented wearing military uniform or accompanied by others in uniform.
Abraham posted a video on X showing one of the masked settlers throwing a stone at what appeared to be a CCTV camera. He wrote: ‘‘The group of armed KKK-like masked settlers that lynched No Other Land director Hamdan Ballal caught here on camera.’’
He added: ‘‘Hamdan Ballal is now free and is about to go home to his family.”
No Other Land, which won the Oscar this year for best documentary, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.
The joint Israeli-Palestinian production has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International film festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad. Miami Beach in Florida proposed ending the lease of a movie theatre that screened it.
Basel Adra, another of the film’s co-directors who is a prominent Palestinian activist in the area, said there had been a massive increase in attacks by settlers and Israeli forces since the Oscar win.
“Nobody can do anything to stop the pogroms, and soldiers are only there to facilitate and help the attacks,” he said. “We’re living in dark days here, in Gaza, and all of the West Bank … Nobody’s stopping this.”
Masked settlers with sticks also attacked Jewish activists in the area on Monday, smashing their car windows and slashing tyres, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. Video provided by the group showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution. Most of the international community considers the settlements illegal.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centres.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. About 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive groves – and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
The Palestinians also face threats from settlers at nearby outposts. Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli forces usually turn a blind eye to settler attacks or intervene on behalf of the settlers.
The war in Gaza has brought a surge of violence in the West Bank, with the Israeli military carrying out widespread military operations that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and displaced tens of thousands. There has been a rise in settler violence as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
