Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal says he was beaten by Israeli soldiers during detention
Oscar winner Hamdan Ballal, his face bruised and clothes still spotted with blood said he was heavily beaten by an Israeli settler and soldiers.
Only a few weeks ago, Hamdan Ballal stood on a stage in Los Angeles accepting an Oscar for the film “No Other Land,” a documentary depicting his West Bank village’s struggle against Israel’s occupation.
On Tuesday, Ballal — his face bruised and clothes still spotted with blood — recounted to The Associated Press how he was heavily beaten by an Israeli settler and soldiers the night before. The settler, he said, kicked his head “like a football” during a settler attack on his village.
The 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 said. Ballal doesn’t speak Hebrew, but he said he heard them saying his name and the word “Oscar.”
“I realized they were attacking me specifically,” he said in an interview at a West Bank hospital after his release Tuesday. “When they say ‘Oscar’, you understand. When they say your name, you understand.”
Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal, right, his clothes spotted with blood, is greeted by co-director Basel Adra in Susya in the West Bank on Tuesday.Ilia Yefimovich / dpa via APThe Israeli military did not immediately respond to the claims that Ballal was beaten by soldiers. The settler whom Ballal identified as his attacker, Shem Tov Luski — who has threatened Ballal in the past — denied he or the soldiers beat him and told the AP that he and other Palestinians in the village had thrown stones at his car. He said he didn’t know Ballal was an Oscar winner.
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