Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian co -director of the Oscar’s winning documentary There is no other landHe was released on Tuesday after his arrest by Israeli soldiers in the holiday occupied after being attacked and injured by settlers.
The Israeli army also confirmed that he arrested three Palestinians in the Masafar Yatta area, including Ballal. He said he stopped three Palestinians suspected of throwing rocks into the forces and an Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” between the Israelis and the Palestinians, a claim interviewed by the Associated press disputed.
In a publication on X, the Israeli army said that he sent soldiers to the village of Susya to calm the tensions after “terrorists” threw stones at Israeli settlers. But the “terrorists” began throwing stones at the soldiers and the police, which resulted in the arrest of three Palestinians and an Israeli, he said.
However, he denied the reports that a “Palestinian was arrested while in an ambulance.”
For Tuesday afternoon, Ballal was released, according to his co -director Yuval Abraham, who co -directed with him the Oscar -winning documentary There is no other land.
Abraham, who had originally published about the arrest in X, said Tuesday that “Hamdan Ballal is free and is about to go home with his family.” Contacted by AFPThe Israeli police did not immediately confirm their release.
Previously, Abraham had said that a group of “masked colonists of armed kkk” had “lynching” Ballal and had wounds in the stomach and head. But the “Israeli soldiers invaded the ambulance that called and took it”, AFP He had reported.
In a publication about X, Abraham said a “group of settlers” had presented Ballal.
“They hit him and he has head and stomach wounds, bleeding. The soldiers invaded the ambulance he called and took it. There is no sign of him since then,” Abraham wrote.
He clarified in a subsequent publication that “Hamdan was attacked and beaten, not killed. My use of ‘lynching’ was a bad translation of Hebrew (English is not my first language). He is injured and is arrested at a police station in a settlement. They did not let their lawyer speak to him yet, so we don’t know more.”
The incident took place in the southern village of the West Bank of Susiya, according to the NGO Center Anti-Occupation of Jewish Non-Violence, whose members said they filmed first-hand events. Abraham also shared images of the attack of the Israeli settlers in an X position, which showed the attackers to throw rocks into a vehicle.
The video provided by the Jewish non -violence center showed that a masked settler pushed and balanced the fists to two group activists in a dusty field at night, Al Jazeera reported separately.
The activists return to their car. “Enter, enter!” One shouts, and they crouch how you can hear the rays of the rocks hitting the car.
“The automobile window was broken,” says the driver as they move away.
A group of 10 to 20 masked settlers also attacked Jewish activists on the scene with stones and sticks, broke the windows of their car and cut their tires.
According to his lawyer Lea Tsemel, the police told him that they were detained in an unidentified military base for the “medical treatment”, The Association press reported.
But Tsemel said he had not been able to reach them and that he had no more information about his whereabouts.
Basel Adra, the co -director of There is no other landHe witnessed the arrest and said about two dozen settlers, some masked, some who wore weapons, some with Israeli uniform, attacked the village. The soldiers who arrived pointed their weapons to the Palestinians, while the settlers continued throwing stones.
“We return from the Oscars and every day, since there is an attack against us,” Adra told Associated press. “This could be his revenge for us for making the movie. He feels like a punishment.”
He told Associated press That the settlers entered the town on Monday night shortly after the residents broke the daily fasting for Ramazan.
A settler that, according to Adra, frequently attacks the village, went to Ballal’s house with the military, while the soldiers shot in the air. Ballal’s wife listened to her husband be beaten outside and shout: “I’m dying,” Adra added.
Adra said he later saw the soldiers take Ballal, who was handcuffed and with bandados, from home in a military vehicle. He added that Ballal’s blood still extended everywhere on the ground outside his main door.
Some of the details of Adra’s story were backed by another ocular witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, according to the Associated press.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. There is no other landwhich was led by Israeli-Palestinian activists, won the best documentary in the academy awards of this year.
Filmed in the near Masafer Yatta, the documentary follows a young Palestinian who fights with forced displacement while the Israeli army knocks down the houses of his community to make space for a shooting area.
The Israeli army declared Masafer Yatta a restricted military zone in the 1980s. Bank, excluding the Jerusalem of eastern Israel, is the home of around three million Palestinians, as well as almost half a million Israeli living in illegal settlements according to international law.
