Hamdan Ballal says he was assaulted by settlers and soldiers outside his home in Susiya in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land says he thought he was going to “die” at 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 he was beaten and injured three weeks after winning his Oscar in Hollywood. He was released on Tuesday from a police station in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba.
The incident took place in the village of Susiya in the southern West Bank as residents were breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Ballal said he had gone to document a settler attack on his neighbour’s home in Susiya.
But as the situation escalated and Ballal realised it had “become more and more dangerous”, he said he decided to return home to his family.
However, a settler known to him, together with two Israeli soldiers, followed him to his house, Ballal said, adding that the assault took place just outside his home.
“They held the gun directly to me, the soldiers. … The settler went behind me and directly attacked me with his hands. I don’t know what he held in his hands,” he said.
Ballal fell to the ground as the attack continued.
“The soldiers kept on shouting at me, threatening me and putting the gun, one time at my neck. … They also put the gun on my cheek.”
Ballal recalled thinking he would not survive the attack.
“The soldiers let him [the settler] beat me, and the soldiers also beat me with a gun. I fell because it was a hard, hard attack,” he said. “They focused on my head. They kicked my head and also with a gun.
“I felt they were going to kill me, not just to punish me. … I felt I would die,” he told Al Jazeera.
‘Settlers do what they want’
The documentary No Other Land – directed by Ballal, another Palestinian and two Israelis – chronicles settler violence and Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank’s Masafer Yatta area. It won the Oscar for best documentary on March 2.
Since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023, Ballal said the Israeli army “lets the settlers do what they want”.
“Because the army [is] here, they are settlers with uniforms,” he said.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health says Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 884 Palestinians in the West Bank since the war started 17 months ago.
According to the rights group Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, about 15,700 Palestinians have been detained since October 2023.
