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Witnesses said that Hamdan Ballal was assaulted by masked settlers in his home village. The Israeli military said he was detained on suspicion of throwing stones, which he denies.
March 25, 2025Updated 10:29 a.m. ET
The Israeli police questioned a Palestinian director of an Oscar-winning documentary on Tuesday, according to the authorities and his lawyer, after witnesses reported that Israeli settlers attacked him near his home in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The police were holding Hamdan Ballal, 37, one of the directors of the film, “No Other Land,” and two other Palestinians on suspicion of hurling stones at Israeli vehicles and injuring a settler — accusations they all deny, according to Leah Tsemel, a lawyer representing the detainees.
One settler, a minor, was also detained, but he was released for medical treatment and would be questioned later, according to the Israeli police.
The details of the episode are not entirely clear. But Palestinian witnesses and a group of American activists on the scene said that before he was arrested, Mr. Ballal was set upon as a group of assailants, many of whom were masked, attacked his home village of Susya.
The episode drew attention to rising settler violence in the West Bank. During the past year, Jewish extremists have thrown rocks at Palestinians, set cars on fire and defaced homes. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded more than 1,000 incidents of settler violence in 2024.
President Trump has taken a softer stance on settler violence, canceling sanctions imposed by the Biden administration against individuals accused of carrying out violent acts against Palestinians. On Tuesday, a confirmation hearing for Mike Huckabee, Mr. Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel and an outspoken supporter of settlement building, is set to begin.
