On the 24th of March, Hamdan Ballal – co-director of Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land was reported to have been beaten by settlers outside his home in the West Bank. After the assault, soldiers “invaded the ambulance he called and took him” – as stated by one of his fellow directors, Yuval Abraham.
Over the following 24 hours, fears that Ballal had been ‘disappeared’ rose. The last time the outside world had seen him; he was bleeding from injuries to his head and stomach – while Abraham added Ballal’s lawyer Lea Tsemel was initially denied contact with her client.
Late on the 25th of March, Ballal and two other Palestinian people were released. Before receiving medical attention, he informed reporters that the settlers who attacked him had filmed the assault. He said he was held at an army base, blindfolded, for 24 hours. He told the Associated Press that he had been forced to sleep under a freezing air conditioner, and that he overheard the soldiers “laughing about me … I heard ‘Oscar’ but I didn’t speak Hebrew.
In this case, the three detainees survived their abuse. But this is far from a happy ending. Ballal’s assault and abduction rightly prompted international condemnation – but his prominence as a filmmaker contributed to this, and likely meant there was a good deal more pressure on his captors to release him. The fact is, being abducted, detained indefinitely, or murdered with impunity is the continued reality of Palestinians across the West Bank. They have seen shocking in Israeli military raids and attacks by Israeli settlers since the start of the war in Gaza. Within the first year alone, 600 Palestinians were murdered in the territory.
As well as reiterating previous calls for a permanent end to the occupation in Gaza – where the International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to take actions to prevent genocide against the Palestinian people – it is therefore important to speak out against the colonisation of the West Bank. And while the case of Hamdan Ballal should serve as a rallying point for that cause, his release by no means should be the end point for the activists, filmmakers, writers and festivals who spoke out on his behalf yesterday.
At the same time, we must recognise what is really at the heart of Ballal’s persecution in this particular instance. Having made a film in collaboration with Israeli artists, which dared to both speak about the denial of the basic rights of Palestinians, and to suggest that there is still hope to build a future together, he was made an example of.
To that end, radical film criticism platform DMovies issued one of the most forthright and important summaries of the day, stating:
“Cinema isn’t just entertainment. Cinema is a weapon for personal, social and political liberation. Those who believe in the power of the seventh art have the duty to speak up and to denounce Israel. How much longer can a country torture and slaughter women, children, doctors, journalists, peace activists, aid workers, UN officers, and now filmmakers right in front of our eyes to no consequence?
The Gaza Genocide isn’t the biggest tragedy of the century. Our deafening silence is.”
So, while we share a collective sense of relief that Ballal has been reunited with his family, this is not a ‘happy ending’, where we can afford to go back to business as usual. With the ceasefire having dissolved in Gaza, and violence escalating in the West Bank, we must maintain support for demonstrations calling for peace and justice around the world. We must defend the artists and journalists who have been targeted for their important work around the on-going genocide. And whatever happens, we must never stop talking about Palestine.
A welcome comment on the case and the general war crimes against Palestine.