Oscar-winning Palestinian director says Israeli soldiers beat him after attack by settlers

Hebron, Mar 26: Only a few weeks ago, Hamdan Ballal stood on a stage in Los Angeles accepting an Oscar for the film “No Other Land”, a documentary depicting his West Bank village's struggle against Israel's occupation.

On Tuesday, Ballal – his face bruised and clothes still spotted with blood – recounted to The Associated Press how he was heavily beaten by an Israeli settler and soldiers the night before. The settler, he said, kicked his head “like a football” during a settler attack on his village.

The soldiers then detained him and two other Palestinians. Ballal said he was kept blindfolded for more than 20 hours, sitting on the floor under a blasting air-conditioner. The soldiers kicked, punched or hit him with a stick whenever they came on their guard shifts, he said. Ballal doesn't speak Hebrew, but he said he heard them saying his name and the word “Oscar”.

“I realised they were attacking me specifically,” he said in an interview at a West Bank hospital after his release Tuesday.

“When they say ‘Oscar', you understand. When they say your name, you understand.”

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to the claims that Ballal was beaten by soldiers.

The settler whom Ballal identified as his attacker, Shem Tov Luski – who has threatened Ballal in the past – denied he or the soldiers beat him and told the AP that he and other Palestinians in the village had thrown stones at his car.

He also said he didn't know Ballal was an Oscar winner.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks as well as one Israeli civilian, who was soon released. Ballal denied throwing stones.

The attack took place on Monday night in the southern West Bank village of Susiya. It's part of the Masafer Yatta region featured in “No Other Land”, which depicts the Palestinian residents' attempts to fend off settler attacks and the military's plans to demolish their homes.

At around sunset, as residents were ending their daylong Ramzan fast, roughly two dozen Jewish settlers along with police entered the village, throwing stones at houses and breaking property, witnesses said.

Around 30 soldiers arrived soon after. Jewish Israelis in an activist group supporting the villagers showed video of themselves also being attacked, with settlers hitting their car with sticks and stones.

Ballal said he filmed some of the damage caused by the settlers. Then he went home and locked it, with his wife and three young children inside.

“I told myself if they attack me, if they kill me, I will protect my family,” he said.

Ballal said Luski approached with two soldiers, hit him on the head, knocked him to the ground and kept kicking and punching him in the head.

At the same time, one soldier hit him on the legs with his gun butt, while the other pointed his weapon at him, he said.

Lamia Ballal, the director's wife, said she was huddling inside with their children and heard him screaming, “I'm dying!”

Luski told the AP that he and other settlers had come to the village to help a fellow settler who said he was being attacked by Palestinian stone-throwers. He claimed dozens of masked Palestinians attacked his car with stones, including Ballal.

"He broke my window, threw a stone at my chest,” he said.

He said when soldiers arrived, he led them to Ballal's house to identify him as one of the attackers but denied that he hit him or that settlers attacked any property in the village.

Luski said he had footage of the night's events but when asked to show it to the AP, he responded with a string of expletives.

On Tuesday, a small bloodstain could be seen outside Ballal's home, and the family car's windows were shattered. Neighbours pointed to a nearby water tank with a hole in the side that they said had been punched by the settlers.

Lea Tsemel, the attorney representing Ballal and the two other Palestinians detained with him, said they were taken to an army base, where they only received minimal care for their injuries from the attack.

She said they had no access to them for several hours after their arrest.

Ballal said he had no idea where he was being held, could see nothing and was “freezing” from the hours spent blindfolded under the airconditioner.

The three were transferred to an Israeli police station at the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba and were released Tuesday afternoon.

“All my body is in pain,” he told the AP immediately after his release as he walked, limping, toward a hospital in the nearby Palestinian city of Hebron.

Doctors at the hospital said Ballal had bruises and scratches all over his body, abrasions under his eye and a cut on his chin but no internal injuries. The two other detained Palestinians also had minor injuries.