Three weeks ago, Palestinian film producer Hamdan Ballal stood in front of the world cameras in Hollywood, picking up an Oscar for the best documentary.
The cameras watched him again on Tuesday, his hand to the bruise, as he clumsily leaving for bloody clothing after almost 24 hours in Israeli custody.
The night before, he told reporters who gathered outside, “settlers and soldiers [were] Attacking my home. “They started” beat me and threatened me with rifles, “he added. The soldiers, he said, shot three times in the air.
In custody – where he said he was connected to his eyes and held under the cold air conditioner – the soldiers joked that he was an Oscar winner.
A few times earlier, outside the Hilltop farm, which he shares with his wife and children, a gray family car sits on flattened, sliced tires, with windows shattered and wipers.
It is a sign of the seriousness of violence on Monday night, here on the edge of the sus you on the southern occupied west coast.
The Hamdan co-Director Basel Adra is outside the house on his phone, trying to get the news of his friend’s detention. He tells me he heard that he started problems last night and came to aid.
“I saw about 15 immigrants vandalizing one of the homes and breaking the car, stinging water tanks and throwing rocks on anyone moving.
“It was dangerous. I was afraid for my life. I started talking to people to flee. We started running in different directions.”
He says Hamdan locked himself inside and tried to protect his family, but realized that he was bleeding and needed an ambulance. Then he was arrested.
Hamdan is a well -known journalist and activist. Colleagues say they have been targeting him in the past.
Israeli defense forces say violence on Monday began when “terrorists threw rocks to Israeli nationals, damaging their vehicles.”
“After that, a violent conflict broke out, involving the mutual running of the rocks between the Palestinians and the Israelites.”
Josh Kimelman also came to their aid. For three months, he is a 28-year-old American who lives on the west coast with a Jewish nonviolence center. He challenges the IDF version as violence began.
“What I know is that there were Palestinian sheepdogs who were harassed by immigrants, and then the mob for immigrants began to attack the houses here.”
Josh of New Jersey describes how his car and colleagues were attacked when they arrived.
“Our three friends got out of the car and were immediately attacked by immigrants,” he says.
“He was one that started him, and then a mob followed maybe 15 to 20 masked settlers. They hit one of my friends in the face and neck, and the other hit the baton and pushed it. And they started throwing rocks into our car.”
Josh thinks violence has begun intentionally.
“Probably this attack was planned. He was definitely coordinated. You do not get a mob of 20 immigrants who attacked the way they did so without some pre-planning and thus had certain people in mind.”
Basel Adra says that violence from immigrants has increased here in recent months.
“There have been 45 attacks since the beginning of the year – in this small village alone, not the whole Masaf Yatta.
“It’s like hundreds of attacks, every day something that happens in the community, leaving us in fear and scare.
“We are innocent, people living in our homes surrounded by these terrorist settlers with weapons, with cars, and the army and police do not support us.”
Basel had just heard the news that Hamdan would be released after paying bail, but goes to the hospital for further treatment before returning home.
Basel shows me an Oscar statue that presented the world in Los Angeles in Los Angeles. He had high hopes that such global recognition could help improve people’s lives here.
“It’s disappointing,” he says. “The movie reached the world’s biggest stage, the name of Musaf Yatta became known, but that doesn’t help us in the field.”
