’Israeli’ Settlers Attack Family Home, Injuring Filmmaker’s Brother

By Staff, Agencies

Nearly a year after winning an Oscar for "No Other Land", the co-director said his home and family have faced renewed attacks on "Israeli" occupation forces [IOF] and settlers' violence amid ongoing West Bank violence.

Hamdan Ballal said a group of settlers who had conducted a long-running campaign of harassment against Palestinian villagers came on Sunday to his home in Susya, in the Masafer Yatta area on the southern edge of the West Bank.

Ballal, one of the documentary’s four directors, said that despite a recent court order barring non-residents from the area, IOF arrived with a local settler leader instead of police. “The army came first and immediately raided our house, attacking everyone inside,” he said.

He gave the IOF the order, and then they called my brother and pushed him to the ground asking for his ID,” Ballal said, adding that one of the IOF grabbed Mohammed by the neck and choked him until “his face turned blue.”

There Mohammed Ballal was put on oxygen and treated for trauma to his neck and bruises.

Relatives who rushed to the Ballal home were detained by the army, with four family members blindfolded and held for three hours before being released at night on a settler-used road.

An IOF spokesperson confirmed the detentions but denied any attack, saying, “On Sunday night, IOF detained a number of Palestinians… after they refused to identify themselves. A short while after, the Palestinians were released."

No Other Land, which won the academy award last year for best documentary feature film, portrays the destruction of Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta, in the south Hebron hills, by "Israeli" settlers acting with the complicity and support of the IOF.

The harsh treatment of Palestinian villagers drew global attention to settlement expansion, intimidation, and village clearances in the West Bank, which human rights groups and a UN rapporteur have called “ethnic cleansing.”

The "Israeli" occupation entity on Sunday opened a West Bank land registry, enabling "Israelis" to stake ownership claims for the first time since 1967.

The move violates international law, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and is part of a series of measures tightening "Israel’s" control over the occupied territory, drawing global condemnation even from the US.

“The situation has become worse,” Ballal told reporters in Susya, citing a recent settler attack in Masafer Yatta that destroyed livestock. “All the people who live in Masafer Yatta are farmers… It is not a life anymore,” he said, noting the IOF has blocked ploughing and coordinated with settlers to prevent grazing.