<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Foreign Affairs Minister José Manuel Albares condemned this Wednesday the recent attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank and, in particular, the attack on film director Hamdan Ballal, winner of the 2025 Oscar for the documentary "No Other Land," which chronicles the lives of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.</strong></h4> "I absolutely condemn the settlers' violence in the West Bank, particularly in Masafer Yatta and Susiya," Albares declared on social media. "I wish a speedy recovery to film director Hamdan Ballal, a symbol today of the suffering of innocent civilians in Palestine," he added. Several Jewish settlers in the West Bank attacked Palestinian film director Hamdan Ballal last Monday. He had gone to the scene to film how settlers attacked several homes in the village of Susiya while Palestinian residents were breaking their Ramadan fast. After being recognized by one of the attackers, according to witnesses, Ballal was attacked by about twenty masked, armed settlers in military uniforms (West Bank settlers are often armed and wear military clothing, making them difficult to distinguish from soldiers). The filmmaker was attacked with stones while being filmed by his attackers, and, according to the same witnesses, the Israeli soldiers present at the scene did nothing to stop them. Following this incident, Ballal and two other Palestinians were arrested by the Israeli army in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba and held for 24 hours, blindfolded and forced to sleep next to a freezing air conditioner. The soldiers later handed them over to the Israeli police for investigation into stone-throwing, property damage, and "attacking regional security." They were then released on condition that they have no contact with others involved in the incident and taken to a nearby hospital. Masafer Yatta, in the southern West Bank, was targeted by the Israeli army as a firing range in the 1980s, after which it expelled its inhabitants, mostly Arab Bedouins. The thousand or so residents who remained there have suffered numerous attacks by soldiers, including the demolition of houses, olive trees, and water tanks. Israeli settlers have also attacked villages, with soldiers turning a blind eye and even complicity, according to human rights organizations.
