The brother of Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was injured after Israeli settlers attacked the family home in the West Bank village of Susya, Ballal has said.
Ballal, 36, said a group of settlers arrived on Sunday and that he called the police, but two soldiers accompanied by a local settler leader came instead. “The army came first and immediately raided our house, attacking everyone inside,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Ballal was not at home, but his brother Mohammed was targeted. “One of them held my brother round his neck and pushed very, very hard … so that my brother couldn’t catch his breath. His face turned blue,” Ballal said. Mohammed was taken to hospital and treated for trauma to his neck and bruises.
Relatives who went to help were intercepted by the army; two of Ballal’s brothers, a nephew and a cousin were held in handcuffs and blindfolded for three hours at a nearby army base before being released at night on a road used by settlers, he said. The Israel Defense Forces denied the attack, saying soldiers detained Palestinians who refused to identify themselves and released them shortly after.
The attack comes almost a year after No Other Land won the Oscar for best documentary feature. The film depicts the destruction of Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta by Israeli settlers with army support. Ballal said the situation had worsened, noting a recent settler attack on a Palestinian barn where sheep and lambs were killed.
