Oscar-winning Palestinian director injured in attack by Israeli settlers released after arrest

By Yosri Al-Jamal, Mussa Qawasma and Ali Sawafta

SUSIYA, West Bank (Reuters) -The Oscar-winning director of a documentary on the Israel-Palestinian conflict was released from detention on Tuesday, a day after being injured and arrested during a raid by Israeli settlers on his village in the occupied West Bank.

Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the award-winning "No Other Land", said he had been assaulted by settlers after filming them attacking a neighbour's house and then returning to make sure his own house was not attacked.

"I was just waiting outside, if any settlers or any army were attacking my home," he told Reuters after being released from police custody.

He said he had been pushed to the ground, while soldiers yelled at him to stand up and pointed their guns at him. "It's crazy, you can imagine your family, your kids inside the home and you need to protect them," he said.

Shortly before the incident, in which he ended up being arrested by Israeli security forces, a group of settlers attacked a gathering for Iftar, the end of the daily Ramadan fast, at Susiya village near Hebron.

"Dozens of settlers attacked the gathering at Iftar," Jihad Nawajaa, head of the Susiya local council, told Reuters by phone. "The young men came out to prevent them, and there were about eight injuries on our side."

Israeli police arrested three men, including Ballal, who was injured during the standoff.

"This is not the first time that the settlers attacked our gathering, but in the recent period the attacks have increased," Nawajaa said, adding that the settlers had stolen around 10 sheep from the village during the attack.

Monday's incident was the latest in which Israeli settlers have been accused of raiding Palestinian or Bedouin villages and encampments in the West Bank, sometimes to steal livestock. Palestinians and activists who monitor such attacks say the police and army typically stand by without intervening.

Lamia Ballal, the filmmaker's wife, said settlers had gathered around the family house and her husband had gone outside to prevent them from breaking in.

"The settlers attacked him and started beating him, and then they arrested him," she told Reuters.

Anna Lippman, an American-Canadian from a group called the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, said her group had been attacked by settlers after arriving in the village around 15 minutes after the violence began.

'TARGETED'

The Israeli military said police and soldiers intervened after Palestinians threw rocks at the vehicles of Israeli citizens and later at Israeli security forces.

"In response, the forces apprehended three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at them, as well as an Israeli civilian involved in the violent confrontation," it said in a statement.

It denied reports that at least one of the Palestinians was arrested in an ambulance.

Asked for an update on Ballal's condition and status on Tuesday, the Israeli police sent the statement first issued by the army the previous night.

"No Other Land," a film about Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community, co-directed by Palestinian and Israeli directors, won the Oscar for best documentary at this year's Academy Awards.

Ballal said one of the settlers who took part in the assault was well known to him.

"This is not the first time," he said. He has attacked my home many times and also has grazed his cows in the garden of my house."

Basel Adra, one of the film's other co-directors, said he believed the settlers had taken the army to the family house as revenge for the film's depiction of the Masafer Yatta area near where Monday's incident occurred.

"Because he carries his camera and documents what is going on, I think he is targeted and he was avenged this way at night," he said.

European countries and the previous U.S. administration of President Joe Biden have imposed sanctions on violent Israeli settlers, but under President Donald Trump, the White House has removed them.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta from Ramallah; writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Sharon Singleton, Aidan Lewis and Bill Berkrot)