United News of Bangladesh

Israeli settlers assaulted one of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land on Monday in the occupied West Bank before he was later taken into custody by the Israeli military, according to two of his fellow directors and other witnesses. Filmmaker Hamdan Ballal was among three Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya, according to attorney Lea Tsemel, who represents them. Police informed her that they were being held at a military base for medical treatment, but as of Tuesday morning, she had been unable to reach them and had no further information regarding their whereabouts. Israel’s culture minister calls ‘No Other Land’ Oscar win a ‘sad moment’ Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the incident and stated that approximately two dozen settlers—some masked, some armed, and some dressed in Israeli military uniforms—attacked the village. When soldiers arrived, they pointed their weapons at the Palestinians while settlers continued hurling stones. “We returned from the Oscars, and since then, we have faced daily attacks,” Adra told The Associated Press. “This could be their retaliation against us for making the film. It feels like punishment.” The Israeli military claimed to have detained three Palestinians suspected of throwing rocks at its forces, along with one Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” between Israelis and Palestinians—an assertion that witnesses interviewed by the AP disputed. The military stated that the detainees had been handed over to Israeli police for questioning and that an Israeli citizen had been evacuated from the area for medical treatment. No Other Land, which won this year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary, highlights the struggle of residents in the Masafer Yatta region to resist Israeli military efforts to demolish their villages. Ballal and Adra, both from Masafer Yatta, co-directed the film alongside Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. The documentary has garnered multiple international awards, beginning with its debut at the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival. However, it has also faced backlash in Israel and abroad, including an instance when Miami Beach officials considered revoking the lease of a cinema that screened the film. According to Adra, settlers entered the village on Monday evening shortly after residents had broken their fast for Ramadan. One settler—whom Adra claims frequently attacks the village—approached Ballal’s home accompanied by soldiers, who fired shots into the air. Ballal’s wife reportedly heard her husband being beaten outside, screaming, “I’m dying,” Adra recounted. Adra then witnessed soldiers leading Ballal, handcuffed and blindfolded, from his home into a military vehicle. Speaking to the AP over the phone, he described how Ballal’s blood remained visible on the ground outside his front door. Another eyewitness, speaking anonymously due to fear of retaliation, corroborated some of Adra’s account. Additionally, a group of 10 to 20 masked settlers, wielding stones and sticks, attacked activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence. They smashed car windows and slashed tyres to force the activists to flee, according to Josh Kimelman, one of the activists at the scene. Footage provided by the Center for Jewish Nonviolence captured a masked settler shoving and striking two activists in a dusty field at night. The activists rushed back to their vehicle as the sound of rocks hitting the car was heard. Israel seized the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians seek all three territories for a future state and consider settlement expansion a significant obstacle to a two-state solution. Israel has established over 100 settlements, housing more than 500,000 settlers with Israeli citizenship. Meanwhile, the 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority overseeing population centres. The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered the expulsion of its predominantly Arab Bedouin residents. Despite this, roughly 1,000 residents have remained, though soldiers routinely enter to demolish homes, tents, water tanks, and olive orchards. Palestinians fear that a full-scale expulsion could happen at any time. Palestinians hope Oscar-winning ‘No Other Land’ brings global support Since the onset of the Gaza war, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during large-scale military operations, while settler attacks on Palestinians have surged. At the same time, there has also been an increase in Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

Scores of Israeli settlers went on a violent rampage in the northern West Bank late Sunday, setting dozens of cars and homes on fire after two settlers were killed by a Palestinian gunman. Palestinian medics said one man was killed and four others were badly wounded in what appeared to be the worst outburst of settler violence in decades. The deadly shooting, followed by the late-night rampage, immediately raised doubts about Jordan’s declaration that Israeli and Palestinian officials had pledged to calm a year-long wave of violence. Palestinian media said some 30 homes and cars were torched. Photos and video on social media showed large fires burning throughout the town of Hawara — scene of the deadly shooting earlier in the day — and lighting up the sky. In one video, a crowd of Jewish settlers stood in prayer as they stared at a building in flames. And earlier, a prominent Israeli Cabinet minister and settler leader had called for Israel to strike “without mercy.” Late Sunday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a 37-year-old man was shot and killed by Israeli fire. The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said two other people were shot and wounded, a third person was stabbed and a fourth was beaten with an iron bar. Some 95 others were being treated for tear gas inhalation. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he called “the terrorist acts carried out by settlers under the protection of the occupation forces tonight.” “We hold the Israeli government fully responsible,” he added. The European Union said it was “alarmed by today’s violence” in Huwara, and said “authorities on all sides must intervene now to stop this endless cycle of violence.” The U.K.’s ambassador to Israel, Neil Wigan, said that “Israel should tackle settler violence, with those responsible brought to justice.” As videos of the violence appeared on evening news shows, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealed for calm and urged against vigilante violence. “I ask that when blood is boiling and the spirit is hot, don’t take the law into your hands,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. The Israeli military said its chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzl Halevi, rushed to scene. It said troops were being reinforced in the area as they worked to restore order and search for the shooter. Ghassan Douglas, a Palestinian official who monitors Israeli settlements in the Nablus region. said that settlers burned at least six houses and dozens of cars in Hawara, and reported attacks on other neighboring Palestinian villages. He estimated around 400 Jewish settlers took part in the attack. “I never seen such an attack,” he said. The rampage occurred shortly after the Jordanian government, which hosted Sunday’s talks at the Red Sea resort of Aqaba, said the sides had agreed to take steps to de-escalate tensions and would meet again next month ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. “They reaffirmed the necessity of committing to de-escalation on the ground and to prevent further violence,” the Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced. After nearly a year of fighting that has killed over 200 Palestinians and more than 40 Israelis in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the Jordanian announcement marked a small sign of progress. But the situation on the ground immediately cast those commitments into doubt. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip – areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war – for a future state. Some 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements as illegal and obstacles to peace. The West Bank is home to a number of hard-line settlements whose residents frequently vandalize Palestinians land and property. But rarely is the violence so widespread. Prominent members of Israel’s far-right government called for tough action against the Palestinians. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler leader who lives in the area and has been put in charge of much of Israel’s West Bank policy, called for “striking the cities of terror and its instigators without mercy, with tanks and helicopters.” Using a phrase that calls for a more heavy-handed response, he said Israel should act “in a way that conveys that the master of the house has gone crazy.” Late Sunday, however, Smotrich appealed to his fellow settlers to let the army and government do their jobs. “It is forbidden to take the law into your hands and create dangerous anarchy that could spin out of control and cost lives,” he said. Earlier, in Israeli ministerial committee gave initial approval to a bill that would impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted in deadly attacks. The measure was sent to lawmakers for further debate. There were also differing interpretations of what exactly was agreed to in Aqaba between the Palestinians and Israelis. Jordan’s Foreign Ministry said the representatives agreed to work toward a “just and lasting peace” and had committed to preserving the status quo at Jerusalem’s contested holy site. Tensions at the site revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif have often spilled over into violence, and two years ago sparked an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas militant group during Ramadan. Officials with Israel’s government, the most right-wing in Israeli history, played down Sunday’s meeting. A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity under government guidelines, said only that the sides in Jordan agreed to set up a committee to work at renewing security ties with the Palestinians. The Palestinians cut off ties last month after a deadly Israeli military raid in the West Bank. Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, who led the Israeli delegation said there were “no changes” in Israeli policies and that plans to build thousands of new settlement homes approved last week would not be affected. He said “there is no settlement freeze” and “there is no restriction on army activity.” The Jordanian announcement had said Israel pledged not to legalize any more outposts for six months or to approve any new construction in existing settlements for four months. The Palestinians, meanwhile, said they had presented a long list of grievances, including an end to Israeli settlement construction on occupied lands and a halt to Israeli military raids on Palestinian towns. Sunday’s shooting in Hawara came days after an Israeli military raid killed 10 Palestinians in the nearby city of Nablus. The shooting occurred on a major highway that serves both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. The two men who were killed were identified as brothers, ages 21 and 19, from the Jewish settlement of Har Bracha. Hanegbi was joined by the head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency who attended the talks in neighboring Jordan. The head of the Palestinian intelligence services as well as advisers to President Mahmoud Abbas also joined. Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who has close ties with the Palestinians, led the discussions, while Egypt, another mediator, and the United States also participated. In Washington, the U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, welcomed the meeting. “We recognize that this meeting was a starting point,” he said, adding that implementation will be critical.” It was a rare high-level meeting between the sides, illustrating the severity of the crisis and the concerns of increased violence as Ramadan approaches in late March. In Gaza, Hamas, an Islamic militant group that seeks Israel’s destruction, criticized Sunday’s meeting and called the shooting a “natural reaction” to Israeli incursions in the West Bank. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Hamas militant group subsequently took control of the territory, and Israel and Egypt maintain a blockade over the territory.