“No Other Land” co-director Hamdan Ballal said on social media that the same person who targeted him following his Oscar victory has attacked his family and left his brother hospitalized.
Ballal’s “No Other Land” co-directors Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra shared the statement on their social media. Ballal added that the settler who went after him after returning from winning the Best Documentary Oscar in 2025 “again led an attack against my home and my family. Four of my family members are currently arrested and one is in the hospital.”
“We call the police, they do nothing. The army comes, they do nothing,” Ballal said. “Today, Shem Tov Lusky – the settler who attacked me in my home shortly after I won the Oscar last year – came with his flock to my home. My brother called the police to report the incursion. The army came first and immediately raided our house, attacking everyone inside. Then they arrested two of my brothers, a nephew, and cousin. Another brother was badly injured and is now in the hospital.”
He finished: “The Israeli court decision was supposed to make things a bit quieter for us. But the opposite has been true. The settlers have ramped up their harassment and the Israeli authorities have done nothing to enforce the decision, and today they joined the settlers in the attack.”
“No Other Land,” is a documentary made over four years by the filmmaking team of Palestinian West Bank residents Ballal and Adra alongside Israelis Abraham and Rachel Szor, all of whom attended the Oscars earlier this month and received the award for Best Documentary Feature. The film chronicles the destruction of Palestinians’ homes in the West Bank hamlet of Masafer Yattaby by Israeli settlers after a 2019 Israeli court ruling upheld the area as a “military zone.”
Ballal was attacked after returning home following his Oscar win in 2025. According to witnesses he was “lynched” and sustained injuries to his head and his stomach. Other witnesses said that a stone-throwing fight broke out between Israelis and Palestinians after an Israeli shepherd was attacked by Palestinians.
