<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-top-anchor"></div>
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" lang="en" dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-oscar-winner-severely-beaten-israeli-settlers">middleeasteye.net</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Palestinian Oscar winner 'lynched' by Israeli settlers, colleague says</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">By Yasmine El-Sabawi</div>
<div class="gmail-meta-data">
<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">March 25, 2025</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p>Palestinian
film director and Academy Award-winner Hamdan Ballal was violently
attacked by what his colleague described as a "lynch mob" of <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel" target="_blank">Israeli</a> settlers on Monday night in the Palestinian village of Susya, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. </p>
<p>Susya is also the site of an Israeli settlement, which is illegal
under international law and something most American administrations have
agreed violates Article 49 of the Geneva Convention. </p>
<p>Ballal's whereabouts are now unknown after Israeli soldiers then
seized him from the ambulance that arrived to treat him, his co-director
and fellow Oscar winner of the documentary <em><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/no-other-land-documentary-captures-palestinian-spirit-fails-depiction-israelis" target="_blank">No Other Land</a></em>, Yuval Abraham, <a href="https://x.com/yuval_abraham/status/1904235552620339365?s=61" target="_blank">said on X</a>. </p>
<p>Abraham, a journalist for +972 magazine, said in a <a href="https://x.com/yuval_abraham/status/1904250011929768348?s=61" target="_blank">separate post</a>
featuring a shaky cell phone video that masked settlers "attacked
Hamdan’s village, they continued to attack American activists, breaking
their car with stones".</p>
<p>The five Jewish-American activists at the scene "are participating in
a three-month long co-resistance project" in Masafer Yatta, the village
at the heart of <em>No Other Land</em>, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence said in a statement released on Monday. </p>
<p>Masafer Yatta is a short drive southeast of Susiya. </p>
<p>The activists "responded to calls to come and support the village of
Susiya while it was under attack," and "when the activists returned to
their car to seek shelter, the settlers surrounded the car, slashed its
tires, and smashed the windows with stones", the statement read. </p>
<p>Basel Adra, the Palestinian resident of Masafer Yatta whose story is told in the film, <a href="https://x.com/basel_adra/status/1904257794678952400" target="_blank">said on Monday</a>
that he was "standing with Karam, Hamdan's 7 year old son, near the
blood of Hamdan's in his house, after settlers lynched him". </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/no-other-land-oscar-outrage-israel" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/063_2202965386.jpg.webp?itok=L4jMQo3K" width="394" height="246" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;">
</a></p><p>'No Other Land': Palestinian-Israeli film’s Oscar win sparks outrage in Israel</p>
<p>
<br></p></div>
<p>Ballal "is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding", Adra said.</p>
<p>"This is how they erase Masafer Yatta."</p>
<p>Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their homes and farms are
commonplace. The attacks are often violent and can be deadly and can
include the torching of property and animals and the beatings of
residents.</p>
<p>The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, has documented at least
220 attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in 2025 alone. </p>
<p>In a particularly gruesome case in 2015, an 18-month-old Palestinian
boy was burned to death when settlers torched a home in Duma, south of
Nablus. </p>
<p>Former US President Joe Biden sanctioned a number of Israeli settlers
for carrying out such attacks, but President Donald Trump has since
lifted those sanctions. </p>
<p>"Local and international activists regularly document the actions of
settlers carrying out similar attacks, often calling the police for some
sort of recourse, but settlers are rarely, if ever, held accountable
for their crimes," the Center for Jewish Nonviolence said. </p>
<h3>'Their hands were purple'</h3>
<p>Eyewitnesses have often recounted how the Israeli military either
stands by as settlers carry out attacks or arrests the Palestinians and
foreign activists who are defending the property. </p>
<p>Middle East Eye recently spoke to 44-year-old activist Alex Chabbott,
who was deported back to the US this month and banned from re-entering
Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza "for 99 years". </p>
<p>Chabbott was just north of Masafer Yatta in at-Tawani, as part of the
International Solidarity Movement, when he said Israeli settlers
arrived with assault rifles and knives to confront Palestinian families.</p>
<p>When Chabbott and a fellow activist began filming, they were stopped
by Israeli forces, searched, and accused of being the ones who brought
the knives. </p>
<div>
<p><a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-settlers-escalate-attacks-palestinians-west-bank" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.middleeasteye.net/sites/default/files/styles/read_more/public/images-story/settler-attack-west-bank-jan2025-afp.jpg.webp?itok=s_YedeoH" width="394" height="246" alt="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;">
</a></p><p>Israeli settlers escalate attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank</p>
<p>
<br></p></div>
<p>"Then they realised that wasn't the case," Chabbott told MEE. </p>
<p>"They had these four Palestinian men zip-tied on the ground, with zip
ties that were on super tight. Their hands were purple," he said.</p>
<p>"And we were there maybe for about half an hour. And basically, in
that half hour, what it appears to me was happening was the settlers and
the military were getting their story straight that they were going to
make up. I never got anyone else's point of view [and they didn't]
interview the Palestinians." </p>
<p>Chabbott was arrested and interrogated, had his phone confiscated,
and was put into a detention cell before being sent back to California. </p>
<p>He stressed the need for Americans to understand that there is no
protection for Palestinian families in the West Bank as the number of
Israeli settlements grows.</p>
<p>"They literally have free reign to do whatever they want, whenever they want," he told MEE.</p>
<p>"They can just come in, steal a bunch of stuff, break solar panels,
and eventually, you know, some of these [Palestinian] families either
get orders to leave by the military, their homes are destroyed, or some
just give in because they're like, 'I can't live like this anymore'."</p>
</div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div></div>
</div>
<br></div>