SUSIYA: Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian Oscar-winning co-director of No Other Land, has been taken into custody by Israeli military on Tuesday (25th March, 2025).
Hamdan Ballal (second from right).
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Co-director, Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, taking to the X informed: “A group of settlers attacked the home of Hamdan Bilal, who directed the Oscar-winning film No Other Land with me. They beat him in the head and all over his body. While wounded and bleeding, soldiers entered the ambulance he had called and arrested him. He has since disappeared and it is unclear whether he is receiving medical treatment or what is happening to him.”
Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham and Palestinian journalist Basel Adra (both 30-year old) shot a documentary in the town of Masafar Yatta (in the occupied West Bank) that bagged Award at the Berlinale film festival in 2024, and this year it won Oscar for the best documentary at the 97th Academy Awards here.
Speaking on the occasion Palestinian (journalist/) director Basel Adra stated: “No Other Land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Israeli (journalist/) director Yuval Abraham, maintaining that they made the film together because their voices were stronger, said: “When I look at Basel I see my brother but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military law that destroys his life and he cannot control.
“We see each other, the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people which must end, the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7 which must be freed.
“There is a different path — a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say as I’m here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.
“And why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe. There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”
Newspakistan.tv
