What happened to Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal?

The Israeli army attacked and arrested Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, after he was assaulted by a group of settlers, as reported by international media on Monday.

Hamdan Ballal’s fellow co-director, Yuval Abraham, said in a post on X that a “group of settlers” attacked Ballal, beating him, causing injuries to his head and stomach, and he was bleeding. Abraham added that soldiers attacked the ambulance Ballal had called and took him away. Since then, there has been no sign of him.

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According to the NGO Center for Jewish Nonviolence, the incident took place in the southern West Bank village of Susiya. When asked by the news agency AFP, the military said it was verifying the information. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

The film No Other Land, made by Israeli-Palestinian filmmakers, won the Best Documentary Feature award at this year’s Academy Awards. The documentary was filmed in the nearby Massafer Yatta, where a young Palestinian faces forced displacement as the Israeli army demolishes homes in his community to make space for a firing zone.

In the 1980s, the Israeli army declared Massafer Yatta a prohibited military zone. Outside of Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, nearly 3 million Palestinians and about 500,000 Israelis live in settlements considered illegal under international law in the West Bank.