Hamdan Ballal says he was attacked by settlers and soldiers outside his house in Susiya in an occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian co -director of the Oscar -winning documentary, no other land says he thought he was going to “die” in the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers before his arrest this week in the occupied West Bank.
Hamdan Ballal was arrested on Monday by Israeli forces after being beaten and injured three weeks after winning his Oscar in Hollywood. He was released on Tuesday from a police station from the Israeli colony of Kiryat Arba.
The incident took place in the village of Susiya in the south of the West Bank while the residents broke quickly during the Ramadan Sacred Muslim month.
Addressing Tel Aviv Tribune on Tuesday, Ballal said that he had gone to document a settlers’ attack against his neighbor’s home in Susiya.
But as the situation intensified and that Ballal realized that he had “become more and more dangerous”, he said that he had decided to go home to his family.
However, a colonist known to him, with two Israeli soldiers, followed him at his home, said Ballal, adding that the assault had taken place just outside his house.
“They kept the pistol directly, the soldiers. … The colonist went behind me and directly attacked me with his hands. I don’t know what he was holding in his hands,” he said.
Ballal fell to the ground as the attack continued.
“The soldiers continued to shout me, threaten me and put the pistol once around my neck. … They also put the pistol on my cheek.”
Ballal remembers having thought that he would not survive the attack.
“The soldiers left him (the colonist) beat me, and the soldiers also beat me with a weapon. I fell because it was a hard and hard attack,” he said. “They focused on my head. They kicked my head and also with a pistol.
“I felt that they were going to kill me, not only to punish me. … I felt that I would die,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“The colonists do what they want”
The documentary No other land – produced by Ballal, another Palestinian and two Israelis – recounts the violence of the colonists and the Israeli demolitions of Palestinian houses in the Masafer region of the West Bank Yatta. He won the Oscar for the best documentary on March 2.
Since the War of Israel against Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Ballal said that the Israeli army “let the colonists do what they want”.
“Because the army (is) here are settlers with uniforms,” he said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health says that the Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 884 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war 17 months ago.
According to the group of Palestinian rights Prisoner’s Society, around 15,700 Palestinians have been detained since October 2023.
