Susya is also the site of an Israeli settlement, which is illegal under international law and something most American administrations have agreed violates Article 49 of the Geneva Convention.
Ballal’s whereabouts are now unknown after Israeli soldiers then seized him from the ambulance that arrived to treat him, his co-director and fellow Oscar winner of the documentary No Other Land, Yuval Abraham, said on X.
Abraham, a journalist for +972 magazine, said in a separate post featuring a shaky cell phone video that masked settlers “attacked Hamdan’s village, they continued to attack American activists, breaking their car with stones”.
The five Jewish-American activists at the scene “are participating in a three-month long coresistance project” in Masafer Yatta, the village at the heart of No Other Land, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence said in a statement released on Monday.
Masafer Yatta is a short drive southeast of Susiya.
The activists “responded to calls to come and support the village of Susiya while it was under attack,” and “when the activists returned to their car to seek shelter, the settlers surrounded the car, slashed its tires, and smashed the windows with stones”, the statement read.
Basel Adra, the Palestinian resident of Masafer Yatta whose story is told in the film, said on Monday that he was “standing with Karam, Hamdan’s 7 year old son, near the blood of Hamdan’s in his house, after settlers lynched him”.
Ballal “is still missing after soldiers abducted him, injured and bleeding”, Adra said.
“This is how they erase Masafer Yatta.”
Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and their homes and farms are commonplace. The attacks are often violent and can be deadly and can include the torching of property and animals and the beatings of residents.
The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, has documented at least 220 attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in 2025 alone.
In a particularly gruesome case in 2015, an 18-month-old Palestinian boy was burned to death when settlers torched a home in Duma, south of Nablus.
Former US President Joe Biden sanctioned a number of Israeli settlers for carrying out such attacks, but President Donald Trump has since lifted those sanctions.
“Local and international activists regularly document the actions of settlers carrying out similar attacks, often calling the police for some sort of recourse, but settlers are rarely, if ever, held accountable for their crimes,” the Center for Jewish Nonviolence added.
Eyewitnesses have often recounted how the Israeli military either stands by as settlers carry out attacks or arrests the Palestinians and foreign activists who are defending the property.
