By Martín Fuentes
The “Best Documentary Feature Film” award that No Other Land won at the last Academy Awards once again brought the tragic plight suffered nuby the Palestinian people in the West Bank to the attention of the global media. Through its protagonists, Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham, the film illustrates the contrasting realities that the Palestinian and Iraeli populations experience. While Basal suffers the oppression that Palestinians face daily, Yuval enjoys the freedom granted by his Israeli origins. Unfortunately, despite the film’s popularity, the fascist practices of the State of Israel and its population were soon to follow.
Last night, March 24th, the documentary’s co-director, Hamdan Ballal, was lynched by a group of settlers at his home in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. The news was first reported on X by Yuval Abraham, the documentary’s other co-director director. He explained that his colleague was attacked and then kidnapped by occupation forces, with no information given about his whereabouts. He also stated that, at the time of his arrest, Hamdan was bleeding and had suffered injuries to his head and stomach.
In the released videos, the same group of settlers who lynched Hamdan can then be seen dressed in military garb chasing and throwing stones at the car of activists that were near the filmmaker. After the attack, Basel Adra, also co-director of the documentary, said he was “with Hamdan’s 7-year-old son, Karam, near Hamdan’s blood in his home.”
Hamdan was finally found today and taken to Hebron Hospital. “After being handcuffed all night and beaten at a military base, Hamdan Ballal is free and about to return home to his family,” Yuval Abraham announced on social media.
More than ever: solidarity with Palestine!
The spread of the news unleashed not reflexion but hordes of Israeli-backed trolls on social media, spreading misinformation and slandering the documentary’s makers. All these events once again confirm that Zionism brooks no qualms about even the slightest criticism. Social, political, or, in this case, cultural expressions of criticism are quickly repressed with outright hostility.
No space is left unguarded by the Zionist “Big Brother.” The violent colonization of Palestine is paralleled by the harassment of activists around the world. This is currently happening in Argentina with the persecution of Alejandro Bodart through the local justice system, or in Lebanon where Israel insists on deepening its interference by criminalizing students and workers.
With Trump’s rise, Zionist aggression was reinforced, deporting students sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and forcing a situation that enabled Netanyahu to continue his expansionist plans. After breaking the ceasefire, the Israeli Security Cabinet authorized a new plan to occupy and legalize 13 settlements in the West Bank. The region did not escape the Israeli offensive, and 61 people have been martyred and 134 wounded since the ceasefire was broken. This adds to the 937 Palestinians killed and more than 7,000 wounded in the West Bank since October 7, 2023.
There is no guarantee to stop Zionist barbarism other than internationalist mobilization and solidarity. It is urgent to defend all forms of artistic expression from Zionist censorship and harassment in order to strengthen the struggle for a single, secular, non-racist, democratic, and socialist Palestine.
