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.
Abraham on Monday, March 24 posted 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.
“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.”
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.
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 his location is still unknown. The video shows the man attacking a group of presumably American activists (it’s unclear why the activists are in the region), cracking their car’s windshield with a stone.
“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.
