AceShowbiz - Hamdan Ballal, a celebrated Palestinian filmmaker, was recently attacked and detained under alarming circumstances. Ballal, known for his Oscar-winning documentary "No Other Land", was beaten by a group of masked Israeli settlers who invaded his village of Susya in the Masafer Yatta area on Monday evening, March 24.

The attack occurred shortly after residents broke their daily fast for Ramadan, as reported by multiple sources including The New York Times and The Associated Press.

According to Basel Adra, one of Ballal's co-directors, around two dozen settlers, some armed and in Israeli military uniform, began hurling stones and destroying property in Susya.

"We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us... It feels like a punishment," Adra told the AP.

The filmmaker's ordeal did not end with the attack. Ballal, bleeding from head and stomach wounds, was taken by Israeli soldiers from an ambulance where he was receiving medical treatment, as verified by videos shared by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence.

Ballal's Israeli co-director, Yuval Abraham, expressed his outrage on social media platform X, stating, "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."

The International Documentary Association has called for Ballal's immediate release and demanded transparency regarding his condition and the reasons for his detention.

Legal representative Leah Zemel informed The New York Times that Ballal and others were being held at a military base for medical treatment but have not been allowed any communication.

"No Other Land", co-directed by Ballal, Adra, Abraham, and Rachel Szor, documents the continuous struggles faced by Palestinian villagers in Masafer Yatta against Israeli settlers.

The recognition Ballal's film has garnered internationally has not shielded him from the escalating violence. Adra speculated that the film's international acclaim might have prompted increased settler aggression, describing the violence as "horrific."

Ballal's situation highlights the broader tensions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where 500,000 settlers live alongside 3 million Palestinians under Israeli military rule. The area, designated as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s, has seen regular demolitions and evictions of Palestinian residents, with the current escalation raising fears of outright expulsion.