Israeli settlers beat one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning film No other land According to one of his directors and other witnesses, they were detained by the Israeli military on Monday.
According to lawyer Leah Tsemmel, film producer Hamdan Ballal is one of three Palestinians detained in Susia village. Police told her that Palestinians were being held at a military base for medical treatment and she said she could not speak with them.
Another co-director, Basel Adra, witnessed the detention center and said about twenty settlers – some wore guns, some carried guns, and some wore Israeli uniforms – attacked the village. Arriving soldiers pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued to throw stones.
“We have been back from the Oscars every day since the attack on us,” Adra told the Associated Press. “It could be their revenge for us to make a movie. It feels like a punishment.”
The Israeli military said it detained three Palestinians suspected of throwing rocks at the troops, and an Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” between Israelis and Palestinians, witnesses interviewed by the ABC. The military said it had transferred them to Israeli police for questioning and evacuated Israeli citizens from the area for medical treatment.
Current23:26Oscar wins movie about Israel destroying the West Bank community
No other land won the Oscar for Best Documentary on Sunday. It tells the story of Israel’s displaced Palestinian community, making way for military shooting ranges in the West Bank. Its two directors, Basel Adra of Palestine and Israel Yuval Abraham, spoke with Matt Galloway in December about their efforts to tell the story in Israel and beyond.
The movie is called Best Documentary in the Oscars
No other landthis year won the Oscar for Best Documentary, chronicles the struggles of residents of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank to prevent the Israeli military from demolishing its village. Ballal and Adra from Masafar Yatta have co-produced the Palestinian-Israeli joint production with Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a series of international awards, starting with the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival. It also caused anger from Israel and abroad, just as Miami Beach briefly proposed to end a lease for a cinema where the documentary was shown.
Adela said settlers entered the village shortly after residents fasted for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan every day. According to Adra’s frequent attack on settlers in the village, he led his army to Ballal’s home, and soldiers shot in the air. According to Adra, Ballal’s wife heard her husband being beaten outside and screamed “I’m going to die.”
Adra then sees soldiers wearing a dance party from his home, handcuffed and blindfolded, becoming a military vehicle. He said in a phone call to the Associated Press that Balaral’s blood was still splattering on the ground outside his front door.
Another witness supported some details of Adra, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.
The Jewish nonviolence center, with 10 to 20 masked settlers also attacked militants, smashing their car windows and cutting tires to get them out of the area, Josh Kimelman, one of the activists at the scene, told the Associated Press.
Video provided by the Jewish Nonviolence Center shows a masked settler shaking his fist at night in a dusty field. The militants rushed back to their car because the rocks could be heard.
Israel, together with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War. Palestinians hope for the future state of all three countries and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to the two-state solution.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta as a live fire training area in the 1980s and ordered residents, mainly Arab Bedouin, to be fired. About 1,000 residents still exist, but soldiers often move in and demolish houses, tents, water tanks and olive gardens – Palestinians fear a complete deportation at any time.
