AN Oscar-winning Palestinian co-director who was detained by the Israeli military and "handcuffed and beaten" has spoken out for the first time since he was attacked.
Hamdan Ballal, who won the Oscar for best documentary for No Other Land this month, was released by Israel on Tuesday after being beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by the Israeli military.
Witnesses report Ballal was attacked in the Palestinian village of Susiya in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening.
Ballal was then detained alongside two other Palestinians and one Israeli, where his laywer said he was "handcuffed and blindfolded all night in an army base while two soldiers beat him up on the floor".
Images shared by fellow co-director Basel Adra showed Ballal receiving hospital treatment after his release. He was seen wearing a jumper stained with blood.
Ballal said: "It all started around 6pm on Monday. We had finished our daily Ramadan fast in Susya in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, when someone called me to say that settlers had entered our village.
"Because I work for a human rights organisation called Haqel: in Defense of Human Rights, and because I'm also a photographer, I went there to document what was happening.
"I took three or four photos, and then I realised that the situation was deteriorating. There were dozens of settlers, and they were becoming increasingly aggressive."
Witnesses recalled how some of the settlers were armed with batons and knives, while one was holding a rifle. They were escorted inside the village by Israeli soldiers.
Once the attacks started, Ballal decided to warn his family.
"I ran to them and told my wife, 'Lock the house and keep the children inside'. They could have attacked me, but by doing so they wouldn't have harmed my family," he told The Guardian.
One settler, escorted by two Israeli soldiers, then walked to Ballal's house.
Ballal said: "The soldiers pointed their rifles at me while the settler from behind began beating me. They threw me to the ground, and the settler started hitting me on the head.
"Then a soldier also began beating me; with the butt of his rifle, he struck me on the head. After that, he fired his weapon in the air.
"I don't understand Hebrew, but I gathered that he said the next rifle shot would hit me. In that moment, I thought I was going to die."
Ballal was then handcuffed and blindfolded and taken to a military vehicle along with two other Palestinians, before being taken to a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba.
While in detention, Ballal said he was beaten by IDF soldiers.
He told The Guardian: "It was a revenge for our movie. I heard the voices of the soldiers, they were laughing about me ... I heard [the word] 'Oscar'."
No Other Land picked up the Oscar for best documentary earlier this month. The film exposes Israeli settler violence and the displacement of Palestinian communities in Masafer Yatta between 2019 and 2023.
Ballal continued: "We won the Oscar just three weeks ago, and the violence has escalated.
"They won't stop here, the settlers will continue to attack us. I'm more scared now than before.
"After what they did to me, I fear it could now happen to others."
The IDF has denied Ballal was beaten in detention.
A spokesperson told The Guardian: "The claims that the detainees were beaten during the night at an IDF detention facility were found to be entirely baseless.
"IDF forces facilitated medical treatment for the detainees after the initial transfer of the suspects to the Israel police, and throughout the night the detainees remained in a military detention facility while handcuffed in accordance with operational protocol."
The spokesperson did not respond to Ballal's allegations that he was beaten by IDF soldiers in front of his house.
