Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of Oscar winning documentary, ‘No Other land’ was assaulted, lynched and abducted by Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank village of Masafer Yatta.
His co-director Yuval Abraham took to social media platform X and wrote, “A group of settlers just lynched Hamdan Ballal, co-director of our film no other land. They beat him and he has injuries in his head and stomach, bleeding. Soldiers invaded the ambulance he called, and took him. No sign of him since.”
Ballal’s friend and co-director Basel Adra 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.”
According to a video put out by an Israeli activist group, Ballal and his group were attacked and assaulted by masked Israeli settlers when they were in a car in a dusty field on Monday night, Al Jazeera reported.
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
Around 10-20 masked violent settlers also attacked Jewish activists at the scene with sticks and stones.
Josh Kimmelman, an activist who was at the scene told the Associated Press news agency, “We don’t know where he is because he was taken away in a blindfold.”
No Other Land follows Palestinian activist Basel Adra’s life as he tries to document the violence and destruction of his village by Israeli Defence Forces.
Israel’s raids on the West Bank displaced over 40,000 Palestinians since January.
Two journalists killed in Gaza in Israeli airstrikes:
Hossam Shabat, a journalist for Al Jazeera Mubasher and Mohammed Mansour of Palestine Today, were killed in two different Israeli airstrikes on Gaza on Monday evening.
Shabat, 23, was killed in an airstrike targeting his car in Beit Lahia, North Gaza while Mansour was killed in an Israeli attack on Khan Younis, South Gaza.
The number of journalists killed in the Gaza strip since October 2023 stands at 208, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the killings of the two journalists and called for an independent investigation into whether they were targeted on purpose.
“The deliberate targeting and killing of a journalist is war crime,” Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement.
Last Tuesday, Israel broke a fragile two-month ceasefire, by launching heavy air strikes across the besieged enclave. At least 50,082 Palestinians in Gaza were recorded dead by the Health ministry in Gaza since October 2023, when Hamas launched an operation to kill over 800 civilians and over 350 IDF soldiers.
