‘No Other Land' Co-Director Hamdan Ballal About to Be Free and Return to Family After Being Attacked and Arrested in West Bank, Yuval Abraham Says

Yahoo

25-03-2025

Updated March 25 9:12am ET 'No Other Land' co-director Yuval Abraham has said that Hamdan Ballal is 'free and is about to go home to his family' after he 'was handcuffed and blindfolded all night in an army base while two soldiers beat him up on the floor.'
Updated March 24 7:00 PM ET Hamdan Ballal, one of the Oscar-winning co-directors of the Israeli-Palestinian documentary 'No Other Land,' was attacked by settlers while in the West Bank and then taken by soldiers, according to Ballal's other co-director Yuval Abraham. The Guardian corroborated it with a report Monday that Ballal was arrested by the Israeli military after being attacked by a group of 15 masked settlers who attacked his house in Susya in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron.
More from IndieWire
Pixar's Pete Docter Says 'Toy Story' Was an Unexpected Hit: We Were All 'Nerds' Making It in Our 'Garage'
Lizzo to Star in Biopic on 'Godmother of Rock & Roll' Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Abraham on Monday, March 24 first posted on X that Ballal was 'lynched' by a group of settlers, presumably referring to Israeli settlers living on Palestinian land in the West Bank, and was then arrested by soldiers who 'invaded' his ambulance. He added there has been no sign of Ballal since. [Editor's Note: Later, Abraham tweeted that his 'use of 'lynched' was a mistranslation from Hebrew (English isn't my first language).'
'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,' Abraham posted on X.
In a subsequent post written in Hebrew and translated via X, Abraham said, 'A group of settlers attacked the home of Hamdan Ballal, who directed the Oscar-winning film 'No Other Land' with me. They beat him in the head and all over his body. While wounded and bleeding, soldiers entered the ambulance he had called and arrested him. He has since disappeared and it is unclear whether he is receiving medical treatment or what is happening to him.'
Shortly after his initial post, Abraham shared another disturbing video of a masked man who he claimed was part of the 'lynch mob' that attacked Ballal's village, adding that Ballal's location is still unknown. The video shows the man attacking a group of American activists (it's unclear why the activists are in the region), cracking their car's windshield with a stone.
Several of those American activists described the scene to the Guardian, saying that the settlers threw stones and destroyed the water tank near Ballal's house, that his car's tires were slashed and his windshield was broken, and that a group of soldiers arrived on the scene alongside other settlers dressed in military uniforms, who then handed Ballal over to the military.
The film's other co-director Basel Adra also shared a photo from the scene, saying he was with Ballal's 7-year-old son.
'I'm standing with Karam, Hamdan's 7-year-old son, near the blood of Hamdan's in his house, after settlers lynched him. Hamdan, co-director of our film 'No Other Land,' is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding. This is how they erase Masafer Yatta,' Adra wrote.
Adra spoke to The Guardian and said the violence in the region is 'increasing' and settlers attack 'almost daily,' leading him to wonder if it's 'revenge' in response to 'No Other Land' winning the Oscar.
'There were dozens of settlers together with the Israeli soldiers and they were threatening us with weapons,' he told The Guardian Monday. 'The police were there from the beginning and did not intervene. While the soldiers were pointing their weapons at us, the settlers started attacking the houses of the Palestinians.'
Ballal is a Palestinian photographer and farmer from Susya, which is a settlement in Area C of the West Bank. Ballal just six hours prior to Abraham's post on X shared a photo and caption on Instagram from Susya, which described another settler attack against three Palestinian shepherds and showed a photo of a shepherd who he said was hospitalized with a head and ear injury caused by a stone. He wrote in a separate post from a week prior that Susya is 'under continuous terrorist attacks' including 10 different severe assaults reported since the start of 2025.
'No Other Land' won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature earlier this month, where Abraham and Ballal were both in attendance along with their other co-director Basel Adra. The film has been in the news again of late after the Mayor of Miami Beach called on a local art house theater to stop screening the film, believing it to be antisemitic, and sparking a public outcry.
IndieWire will provide updates of this story as they come to light. We have reached out to reps for Cinetic Media, which has handled publicity for the film.
Best of IndieWire
Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See
'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie
The 55 Best LGBTQ Movies and TV Shows Streaming on Netflix Right Now