Palestinian Oscar-winning director injured in Israeli settler attack released after arrest.
Co-director of the award-winning "No Country for Old Men," Hamdan Ballal suffered attacks in his village in the West Bank.
SUSIYA, West Bank (Reuters) – The Oscar-winning director of a documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was released from detention on Tuesday (25), a day after being wounded and arrested during an attack by Israeli settlers on his village in the occupied West Bank.
Hamdan Ballal, co-director of the award-winning "No Country for Older People," said he was attacked by settlers after filming them attacking a neighbor's house and then returning to ensure his own house was not attacked.
"I was just waiting outside, in case any settlers or army were attacking my house," he told Reuters after being released from police custody.
The director said he was pushed to the ground while soldiers yelled at him to get up and pointed their weapons at him. "It's madness, you can imagine your family, your children inside the house and you need to protect them," he stated.
Shortly before the incident, in which he was eventually arrested by Israeli security forces, a group of settlers attacked an Iftar gathering, the end of the daily Ramadan fast, in the village of Susiya, near Hebron.
“Dozens of settlers attacked the gathering during Iftar,” Jihad Nawajaa, head of the Susiya local council, told Reuters by telephone. “The young people went out to stop them, and there were about eight injured on our side.”
Israeli police arrested three men, including Ballal, who was injured during the standoff.
“This is not the first time that settlers have attacked our gathering, but in the recent period the attacks have increased,” Nawajaa stated, adding that the settlers stole about 10 sheep during the attack.
Monday's incident (24) was the latest in which Israeli settlers have been accused of raiding Palestinian or Bedouin villages and camps in the West Bank, sometimes to steal livestock. Palestinians and activists who monitor these attacks say that the police and the army usually stand by without intervening.
Lamia Ballal, the filmmaker's wife, said that the settlers gathered around the family's house and her husband went out to stop them from invading.
"The settlers attacked him and began to beat him, and then they arrested him," she told Reuters.
The Israeli military said police and soldiers intervened after Palestinians threw stones at vehicles belonging to Israeli citizens. Three Palestinians suspected of throwing stones at them were arrested.
The military denied reports that at least one Palestinian was arrested in an ambulance.
"No Country for Older People," a film about the Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community, co-directed by Palestinian and Israeli directors, won the Oscar for best documentary this year.
(Reporting by Yosri Al-Jamal and Ali Sawafta)
