‘I thought I was going to die’: Oscar-winning Palestinian director attacked in West Bank accuses Israeli soldiers
An Oscar-winning Palestinian director attacked in the occupied West Bank says he was held overnight in jail by Israeli soldiers who mocked his award between beatings.
Just three weeks ago, Hamdan Ballal was given rapturous applause when he accepted the Academy Award for his film No Other Land.
Now he has spoken out about his ordeal that started on Monday, when his head was “kicked like a football” as he lay in the dirt during a settler attack on his home in the occupied area.
Ballal was attending a gathering for the end of the daily Ramadan fast near Hebron, when a group of masked men attacked him.
“In that precise moment, I thought about my family, who were at home,” Ballal told The Guardian. ‘‘I ran to them and told my wife, ‘Lock the house and keep the children inside.’ They could have attacked me, but by doing so they wouldn’t have harmed my family.’’
“The soldiers pointed their rifles at me while the settler from behind began beating me,” Ballal said.
“They threw me to the ground, and the settler started hitting me on the head. Then a soldier also began beating me; with the butt of his rifle, he struck me on the head. After that, he fired his weapon in the air. I don’t understand Hebrew, but I gathered that he said the next rifle shot would hit me. In that moment, I thought I was going to die.”
Ballal was dragged from an ambulance by the mob, according to co-director Yuval Abraham.
Israeli 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 claimed. Ballal says he heard them saying his name and the word “Oscar”.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have called his allegations “entirely baseless”.
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. Two other detained Palestinians had minor injuries.
His co-director Yuval Abraham has hit out at the Academy for failing to protect his colleague or release a statement abhoring the violence against him.
He posted on X: “While Hamdan was clearly targeted for making No Other Land (he recalled soldiers joking about the Oscar as they tortured him), he was also targeted for being Palestinian—like countless others every day who are disregarded.
