Palestinian film director and Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal was violently attacked on Monday evening in Susya, a Palestinian village south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, by a group of Israeli settlers described by his colleagues as a "lynching mob." The incident highlights the escalating tensions and violence faced by Palestinians in the region.
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03-25, 2025Susya is also the site of an Israeli settlement considered illegal under international law, a stance held by most U.S. administrations who view it as a violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Yuval Abraham, Ballal's co-director and fellow Oscar winner for the documentary "No Other Land," stated on X that after an ambulance arrived to treat Ballal, Israeli soldiers removed him from the ambulance, and his current whereabouts are unknown. This raises serious concerns about Ballal's safety and the actions of the Israeli military.
Abraham, a journalist for +972 Magazine, posted a shaky cell phone video in another post showing masked settlers "attacking Hamdan's village, they continued to attack American activists, smashing their cars with rocks." The Jewish Nonviolent Peaceforce said in a statement released on Monday that five Jewish-American activists on the scene "were participating in a three-month joint resistance project in Masafer Yatta, the core village of 'No Other Land.'" Masafer Yatta is located not far southeast of Susya. The project aimed to support the local community and document human rights abuses.
The statement said that the activists "responded to a call to come support the village of Susya, which was under attack," and that "when the activists returned to their cars to seek shelter, settlers surrounded the cars, slashed the tires, and smashed the windows with rocks." Basel Adra, a Palestinian resident of Masafer Yatta whose story is told in the film, said on Monday that he "stood with Hamdan's 7-year-old son, Karam, right near the blood in Hamdan's home after settlers lynched him." Adra said Ballal was "injured and bleeding and is still missing after being kidnapped by soldiers." "This is how they erase Masafer Yatta." The incident underscores the vulnerability of Palestinian communities and the impunity with which settlers often operate.
Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their homes and farms are a frequent occurrence. These attacks are often violent, even deadly, and can include burning property and animals, as well as assaulting residents. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA recorded at least 220 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in 2025 alone. In a particularly egregious case in 2015, an 18-month-old Palestinian boy was killed when settlers torched a house in Duma, south of Nablus. Former U.S. President Joe Biden had imposed sanctions on some Israeli settlers for carrying out such attacks, but President Donald Trump later rescinded those sanctions. The lack of accountability for these acts continues to fuel the conflict.
The Jewish Nonviolent Peaceforce said that "local and international activists regularly document similar attacks by settlers, often calling the police to seek some kind of redress, but settlers are rarely, if ever, held accountable for their crimes." Witnesses often recount situations in which the Israeli military either stands by while settlers carry out attacks or arrests Palestinians and foreign activists who are protecting property. Middle East Eye recently interviewed Alex Chabot, a 44-year-old activist who was deported back to the United States this month and banned from re-entering Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza for "99 years." The deportation highlights the challenges faced by those attempting to document and resist the occupation.
Chabot, a member of the International Solidarity Movement, was in Tuwani, north of Masafer Yatta, when he said Israeli settlers arrived with assault rifles and knives and confronted Palestinian families. When Chabot and a companion began filming, they were stopped by Israeli soldiers, searched, and accused of being the ones carrying knives. "Then they realized that wasn't the case," Chabot told Middle East Eye. "They tied four Palestinian men to the ground with zip ties that were so tight their hands were turning purple," he said. "We were there for about a half hour. Basically, in that half hour, what it seemed to me was happening was that the settlers and the military were getting their story straight that they were going to concoct. I never got any other perspective, and they didn't interview the Palestinians." The account paints a picture of collusion between settlers and the Israeli military.
Chabot was arrested and interrogated, his phone was confiscated, and he was placed in a holding cell before being sent back to California. He emphasized that Americans need to understand that Palestinian families in the West Bank receive no protection as the number of Israeli settlements grows. "They can really do whatever they want," he told Middle East Eye. "They can come in, steal a bunch of stuff, destroy solar panels, and eventually, you know, some of these [Palestinian] families either get an eviction order from the military and their homes are destroyed, or some people just give in because they're like, 'I can't live like this anymore.'" The situation underscores the dire circumstances faced by Palestinians living under occupation and the urgent need for international attention and intervention.
