Occupied West Bank (Quds News Network)- Palestinian film director and Academy Award-winner Hamdan Ballal was arrested by Israeli forces after being severly assaulted and beaten by what his colleague described as a "lynch mob" of Israeli settlers on Monday night in the Palestinian village of Susya, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Ballal’s co-director and fellow Oscar winner of the documentary No Other Land, Yuval Abraham, said in a post on X 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 Center for Jewish Nonviolence said in a statement released on Monday that 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. Masafer Yatta is a short drive southeast of Susya, which is also the site of an illegal Israeli settlement. The activists "responded to calls to come and support the village of Susya 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. Ballal's whereabouts were unknown after Israeli soldiers seized him from the ambulance that arrived to treat him, Abraham, a journalist for +972 magazine, said on X. Later Abraham confirmed that Hamdan was “assaulted and beaten.. He’s injured and being held at a police station in a settlement. They did not let his lawyer speak to him yet so we don’t know more.” Basel Adra, the Palestinian resident of Masafer Yatta whose story is told in the oscar-winning 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." The Israeli forces confirmed later on Monday that it had arrested Ballal. He was arrested for allegedly "throwing stones." Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law. However, Israel has continued to build settlements across the occupied territory over the past several decades. Israeli settler violence against Palestinians has been on the rise for several years now. Since Israel began its war on Gaza in October 2023, the attacks in the occupied West Bank have spiked even more. The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, has documented at least 220 attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians in 2025 alone. "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 said.