<p>A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary <em>No Other Land</em> was beaten bloody near his home by Israeli settlers and detained by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening, witnesses said.</p><p>The director, Hamdan Ballal, was set upon in Susya, his home village, by at least 20 masked people, mostly teenagers armed with rocks, sticks and knives, according to Joseph Kaplan Weinger, 26, who said he had come upon the attack after it began. Weinger is part of a volunteer initiative that provides protection in areas vulnerable to settler violence.</p><p>It was not clear what prompted the attack, but Weinger, who is also a doctoral student in sociology at UCLA, said the group had descended on Susya, which is south of Hebron, and assaulted West Bank residents as they were breaking the fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Some mockingly shouted holiday blessings as they did so, he said.</p><p>Weinger said that he began honking the car horn in an attempt to alert nearby Israeli soldiers to the attack, but that the Israeli forces prevented him and two companions from reaching Ballal’s home.</p><p>“Soldiers just stood around,” he said. “Later, when we got there, we saw his blood on the ground.”</p>.White House mistakenly shares Yemen war plans with a journalist from The Atlantic.<p>Ballal, 37, was one of three Palestinians detained, according to witnesses and the Israeli military. Leah Zemel, a lawyer representing the detainees, said that she had been informed that they were being held in a military center for medical treatment before questioning, but that she did not know the reason for their detention.</p><p>Ballal was among four directors — the others were Basel Adra, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham — in a Palestinian-Israeli collective that picked up the Academy Award for best documentary this month. The film documents the demolition of West Bank residents’ homes in or near the village of Masafer Yatta, where Adra is from, by Israeli forces claiming the area for a live-fire military training ground.</p><p>On social media, Adra, the other Palestinian director of the film, recalled that it was only a few weeks ago that he, Ballal, and the Israeli creators of the film were being feted at the Oscars.</p><p>“But we always knew we’d have to return to this reality as, unfortunately, the world isn’t helping to end the occupation,” he said.</p>
<p>A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary <em>No Other Land</em> was beaten bloody near his home by Israeli settlers and detained by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening, witnesses said.</p><p>The director, Hamdan Ballal, was set upon in Susya, his home village, by at least 20 masked people, mostly teenagers armed with rocks, sticks and knives, according to Joseph Kaplan Weinger, 26, who said he had come upon the attack after it began. Weinger is part of a volunteer initiative that provides protection in areas vulnerable to settler violence.</p><p>It was not clear what prompted the attack, but Weinger, who is also a doctoral student in sociology at UCLA, said the group had descended on Susya, which is south of Hebron, and assaulted West Bank residents as they were breaking the fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Some mockingly shouted holiday blessings as they did so, he said.</p><p>Weinger said that he began honking the car horn in an attempt to alert nearby Israeli soldiers to the attack, but that the Israeli forces prevented him and two companions from reaching Ballal’s home.</p><p>“Soldiers just stood around,” he said. “Later, when we got there, we saw his blood on the ground.”</p>.White House mistakenly shares Yemen war plans with a journalist from The Atlantic.<p>Ballal, 37, was one of three Palestinians detained, according to witnesses and the Israeli military. Leah Zemel, a lawyer representing the detainees, said that she had been informed that they were being held in a military center for medical treatment before questioning, but that she did not know the reason for their detention.</p><p>Ballal was among four directors — the others were Basel Adra, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham — in a Palestinian-Israeli collective that picked up the Academy Award for best documentary this month. The film documents the demolition of West Bank residents’ homes in or near the village of Masafer Yatta, where Adra is from, by Israeli forces claiming the area for a live-fire military training ground.</p><p>On social media, Adra, the other Palestinian director of the film, recalled that it was only a few weeks ago that he, Ballal, and the Israeli creators of the film were being feted at the Oscars.</p><p>“But we always knew we’d have to return to this reality as, unfortunately, the world isn’t helping to end the occupation,” he said.</p>