Filmmaker Behind Oscar-Winning Documentary About West Bank Was Beaten by Settlers and Abducted, Co-Director Says
No Other Land directors Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham/Cover Images via AP Images
One of the filmmakers behind the No Other Land, the Oscar-winning documentary about the occupied West Bank, has reportedly been abducted.
No Other Land was made by a group of Israeli and Palestinian directors, focusing on the violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. After winning the award for Best Documentary at the 97th Academy Awards in early March, the directors took to the stage to call for an end to the violence and “ethnic cleansing” that has lasted decades in the region. The directors also called out the U.S. for its role in the conflict.
On Monday, Yuval Abraham — one of the Israeli directors — announced on social media that Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal had just been “lynched.”
“A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co director of our film no other land,” Abraham said in a tweet. “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 also posted a video of the mob that supposedly attacked Ballal’s village.
https://x.com/yuval_abraham/status/1904250011929768348
Palestinian co-director Basel Adra confirmed Abraham’s tweet with a post of his own, saying that he was standing with Ballal’s 7-year-old son near the site of attack.
At the time of writing, Ballal’s location was still unknown.
