A Palestinian filmmaker who co-directed theOscar-winning documentary No Other Landwas reportedly assaulted by Israeli settlers and later arrested by Israeli soldiers, according to his Israeli co-director.
Yuval Abraham, who co-directed the film with Hamdan Bilal, said Monday on the X platform that a group of settlers attacked Bilal at his home in the Masafer Yatta region of the southern West Bank. Abraham said Bilal was beaten on the head and body, and that Israeli soldiers entered the ambulance that arrived to treat him and detained him.
“Since then he has disappeared, and it is unclear whether he is receiving medical treatment or what his condition is,” Abraham wrote.
“The violence tonight against my friend, Oscar-winner Hamdan Bilal, is part of a long-standing campaign to expel the residents of Masafer Yatta to make way for settlements,” Abraham said in a statement. “Residents face a double assault: from the army, which demolishes their homes, and from settlers, who attack them with extreme violence backed by the army, as we saw tonight.”
He added that, while Israelis protest for democracy, Bilal and others in Masafer Yatta live “without rights, under military rule, and under attack from settlers and soldiers alike.”
Osama Makhameera, a local activist inMasafer Yatta, said he believed Bilal was targeted specifically because of the documentary. He said Bilal's home was also destroyed and that the ambulance was blocked from reaching him.
U.S. State Department spokesperson Tamara Bruce addressed the incident during a press briefing Monday, saying the U.S. is “concerned about any loss of life or harm to individuals.”
“This is something we condemn, and we are looking into the details,” she said. “It is clear that we are deeply concerned about settler violence and want it to stop.”
The statement marked a rare instance of public criticism of Israel by the State Department during the administration of former President Donald Trump, which typically refrained from commenting on such incidents.