‘No Other Land’ co-director Hamdan Ballal says beating by soldiers was “a revenge for our movie”

The Palestinian co-director of Oscar winning film No Other Land, Hamdan Ballal, has spoken to UK newspaper The Guardian about his attack by Israeli soldiers and settlers in his West bank home this week, saying: “I thought I was going to die.”

“It all started around 6pm on Monday,” said Ballal in an interview with Jerusalem based Lorenzo Tondo, having being released on Tuesday (March 25) after Israeli forces detained him in a police station in the West Bank.

“We had finished our daily Ramadan fast in Susya in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, when someone called me to say that [Israeli] settlers had entered our village.”

Some of the settlers were armed with batons and others with knives, while one was holding an M16 rifle, witnesses told The Guardian. A group of Israeli soldiers escorted the settlers inside the village where Ballal lives.

“Because I work for a human rights organisation called Haqel: in Defense of Human Rights, and because I’m also a photographer, I went there to document what was happening,” he said. “I took three or four photos, and then I realised that the situation was deteriorating. There were dozens of settlers, and they were becoming increasingly aggressive.”

Masked settlers reportedly attacked Palestinian residents. The residents included a group of Jewish activists, smashing their car windows and slashing tyres, according to Josh Kimelman, an activist with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV).

“In that precise moment, I thought about my family, who were at home,” Ballal said. ‘‘I ran to them and told my wife, ‘Lock the house and keep the children inside.’ They could have attacked me, but by doing so they wouldn’t have harmed my family.”

The Guardian article says that one settler, escorted by two Israeli soldiers, walked straight over to Ballal’s house. Soldiers started shooting in the air to prevent anyone from supporting Ballal, who was shouting for help.

“The soldiers pointed their rifles at me while the settler from behind began beating me,” Ballal said. “They threw me to the ground, and the settler started hitting me on the head. Then a soldier also began beating me; with the butt of his rifle, he struck me on the head. After that, he fired his weapon in the air. I don’t understand Hebrew, but I gathered that he said the next rifle shot would hit me. In that moment, I thought I was going to die.”

Ballal and two other Palestinians were moved by the soldiers to a military vehicle, while injured, handcuffed and blindfolded, and then to a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they spent the night on the floor and were forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner.

Ballal said he was beaten by IDF soldiers while in detention. “It was a revenge for our movie,” he said. “I heard the voices of the soldiers, they were laughing about me … I heard [the word] ‘Oscar’.”

His lawyer, Lea Tsemel, said the three received only minimal care for their injuries from the attack and that she had no access to them for several hours after their arrest.

The Israel Defense Forces denied Ballal was beaten in detention. “The claims that the detainees were beaten during the night at an IDF detention facility were found to be entirely baseless,” said a spokesperson.

“IDF forces facilitated medical treatment for the detainees after the initial transfer of the suspects to the Israel police, and throughout the night the detainees remained in a military detention facility while handcuffed in accordance with operational protocol.”

The Guardian stated that the spokesperson did not respond to Ballal’s allegations that he was beaten by IDF soldiers in front of his house.

No Other Land premiered at the Berlinale in 2023 and won the documentary Oscar on March 2. The film depicts Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta communities on the West Bank as they attempt to live their lives despite an Israeli programme to demolish their homes. It was co-directed by a Palestinian-Israeli collective comprising Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Ballal and Rachel Szor.

• BFI confirms African Odysseys strand on pause