“Hamdan tried to retreat, and he brought his kids and wife inside the house and stood at the door to protect them,” Nawaj’ah said. Four settlers began to hit the door of Ballal’s house, injuring Ballal’s head, according to Nawaj’ah, recounting what Ballal’s wife told him.
The settlers fired bullets next to the house and then dragged Ballal away while he was injured, Nawaj’ah said.
The Israel Defence Force said in a statement posted to X that a “violent clash” broke out between Palestinians and Israelis and that it involved “mutual stone-throwing”. Three Palestinians and one Israeli were arrested, the statement said, after the security forces were hit with rocks.
Yuval Abraham, an Israeli co-director of No Other Land, wrote on X that Ballal was “lynched” by “a group of settlers.” He added: “They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him.” In its statement, the IDF denied that any of the Palestinians were detained from inside an ambulance.
קבוצת מתנחלים תקפה את הבית של חמדן בלל, שביים איתי את הסרט אין ארץ אחרת שזכה באוסקר. הכו אותו בראש ובכל הגוף. בעוד פצוע ומדמם, חיילים נכנסו לאמבולנס שהזמין, ועצרו אותו. מאז נעלם ולא ברור אם הוא מקבל טיפול רפואי ומה קורה לו.
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 24, 2025
Joseph and Raviv, two Jewish American activists with the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence organisation who have been living in the West Bank for two months to help document alleged human rights violations against Palestinians there, were in a nearby village when they received a call from Palestinian residents of Susya that a “big attack” by settlers was under way there.
“We drove to the village as fast as we could,” said Joseph, who, like other activists quoted in this story, spoke on the condition that only his first name be used out of fear of retaliation.
When Joseph, Raviv and three other Americans approached Susya about 15 minutes later, Joseph said, one of the two roads leading up to the village was “full of Israeli army and security personnel” in vehicles. So the activists began to drive up the other road. Three of the activists, including Raviv, got out of the car and walked up the hill toward the village.
“As we headed up, a teenager started coming towards us and shouting, and then he came at us, he started pushing us and shoving us,” Raviv recounted. “He got really aggressive; he started punching.”
The attacker, whom the activists captured on video wearing a ski mask and swinging punches at the group, was soon joined by more than a dozen settlers, according to Raviv. They began to throw rocks toward the activists, who ran back to their car. One masked attacker lobbed a rock directly at the car windshield, smashing the glass. The attackers also damaged the car tyres.
The group of armed KKK-like masked settlers that lynched No Other Land director Hamdan Ballal (still missing), caught here on camera. pic.twitter.com/kFGFxSEanY
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) March 24, 2025
Joseph said Israeli soldiers and police officers nearby watched without intervening.
“They refused to go after [the settlers],” Joseph said.
When the activists tried again to drive up the hill toward the village, soldiers blocked their path.
Raviv reached the village on foot, they said. The group came upon an ambulance, settlers, army vehicles and three police vehicles, Raviv said.
“They had three Palestinians zip-tied and blindfolded that they were bringing and arresting,” they said.
Nawaj’ah said the village residents tried to defend themselves and hide in their houses, and had not attacked the settlers. Stones thrown by settlers shattered the windshields of at least two cars in the village, one of which belonged to Hamdan, photos shared by activists showed.
A lawyer representing the arrested Palestinians was told by a police official that the army was still holding the three at a military base, where they were receiving medical treatment and may be held overnight until they can be questioned in the morning, according to Oneg Ben Dror, an activist who was in touch with the lawyer.
Basel Adra, another Palestinian co-director of No Other Land, also said on X that he was with Ballal’s son near the family’s bloodstained home on Monday night in the wake of the attack and arrests. “This is how they erase Masafer Yatta,” he wrote.
I'm standing with Karam, Hamdan's 7 year old son, near the blood of Hamdan's in his house, after settlers lynched him. Hamdan, co-director of our film No Other Land, is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding. This is how they erase Masafer Yatta. pic.twitter.com/72pT3UF3kj
— Basel Adra (@basel_adra) March 24, 2025
The incident is the latest in a string of settler attacks in Susya. There have been more than three dozen attacks in the area in 2025 alone, according to a compilation from activists. Nawaj’ah said settler attacks have increased in frequency recently and are “happening lately on a daily basis in Susya.”
The attack on Ballal comes just weeks after No Other Land won an Oscar for best documentary feature. The film centres on residents of Masafer Yatta trying to stop the Israeli military. Its directors are a group of Palestinian and Israeli activists, including Adra, Rachel Szor, Abraham and Ballal.
The film garnered rave reviews. Ty Burr wrote for the Post that the “powerful” documentary offered “a jolt of moral clarity.”
“Watching these images, you find it hard to understand why the world isn’t rising up in collective outrage,” he wrote.
Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, creators of the Best Documentary Feature Film for “No Other Land”. Photo / Getty Images
Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, creators of the Best Documentary Feature Film for “No Other Land”. Photo / Getty Images
The film was the highest-grossing of all the Oscar-nominated documentaries and won a slew of international awards, even though it had lacked a US distributor. Abraham and Adra said publicly that US distributors were worried about the political backlash to distributing the film.
The film has drawn ire globally, too. Israeli Culture Minister, Miki Zohar, called its Oscar win “a sad moment for the world of cinema.” A prominent Palestinian rights group said the film made “occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism seem normal”.