Oscar-winning Palestinian director released from Israeli detention
Hamdan Ballal – the oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces – has been released from detention, it has been confirmed.
Hamdan Ballal and two other Palestinians left a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they were being held on Tuesday. Ballal had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes.
The three had spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack, according to Ballal’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel.
The Israeli military said on Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a what it described as a violent confrontation. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.
“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”
Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal, who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces, has been released from detention.
At least 50,144 Palestinian people have been killed and 113,704 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement earlier today.
The Israeli military issued more calls to evacuate parts of northern Gaza, telling Palestinians to head towards “known shelters” in the south even though there is no guarantee of safety there.
Press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza on Monday, who died in separate targeted airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces. Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed by an airstrike on his car in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya.
Israeli legislators have given their approval to the 2025 state budget, a key test for Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government that would be at risk of collapse if the vote didn’t go his way and snap elections were called.
At least five people have been killed in Israeli shelling of the southern Syrian province of Daraa, local authorities said. It came after the Israeli military said it had launched attacks on the Syrian airbases of Tadmur and T-4.
In a post on X early this morning, the United States Central Command (Centcom) appeared to confirm fresh attacks on Yemen, targeting Houthi rebels. The post came after reports of new US attacks on the northern province of Saada, which reportedly injured at least two people and destroyed a cancer hospital.
Palestinians as they are forced to flee after intensive attacks by the Israeli army on the northern Gaza towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia, on 25 March 2025 in Gaza. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
In an earlier post, we reported that Israeli shelling had, according to officials, killed at least five people in southern Syria earlier on Tuesday.
The Syrian foreign ministry has now put out a statement in reaction to the deadly attack (this text has been translated):
The Israeli forces’ brutality is unacceptable. We affirm our absolute rejection of these crimes.
We call for an international investigation into the crimes committed against innocent people and into Israeli violations. We also call on the Syrian people to hold on to their land and reject any attempts at displacement or the imposition of a new reality by force.
We affirm that these attacks will not deter Syrians from defending their rights and their land.
Annie Kelly is a human rights journalist for the Guardian
Press freedom organisations have condemned the killing of two journalists in Gaza on Monday, who died in separate targeted airstrikes by the Israeli armed forces.
Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old correspondent for the Al Jazeera Mubasher channel, was killed by an airstrike on his car in the eastern part of Beit Lahiya.
Video reportedly from minutes after the airstrike, which has not been verified by the Guardian, shows people gathering around the shattered and smoking car and pulling a body out of the wreckage.
Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today, was also killed on Monday, reportedly along with his wife and son, in an airstrike on his home in south Khan Younis.
Hossam Shabat, a 23-year old correspondent for Al Jazeera Mubasher (L) and Mohammed Mansour, a correspondent for Palestine Today (R). Photograph: handout
In the hours after the deaths, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Palestinian press freedom organisations released statements condemning the attacks. “CPJ is appalled that we are once again seeing Palestinians weeping over the bodies of dead journalists in Gaza,” said Carlos Martínez de la Serna, CPJ’s program director.
“This nightmare in Gaza has to end. The international community must act fast to ensure that journalists are kept safe and hold Israel to account for the deaths of Hossam Shabat and Mohammed Mansour. Journalists are civilians and it is illegal to attack them in a war zone.”
Oscar-winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal, who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces, has been released from detention.
At least 50,144 Palestinian people have been killed and 113,704 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement earlier today.
The Israeli military issued more calls to evacuate parts of northern Gaza, telling Palestinians to head towards “known shelters” in the south even though there is no guarantee of safety there.
Israeli legislators have given their approval to the 2025 state budget, a key test for Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile coalition government that would be at risk of collapse if the vote didn’t go his way and snap elections were called.
At least five people have been killed in Israeli shelling of the southern Syrian province of Daraa, local authorities said. It came after the Israeli military said it had launched attacks on the Syrian airbases of Tadmur and T-4.
In a post on X early this morning, the United States Central Command (Centcom) appeared to confirm fresh attacks on Yemen, targeting Houthi rebels. The post came after reports of new US attacks on the northern province of Saada, which reportedly injured at least two people and destroyed a cancer hospital.
Oscar-winning Palestinian director released from Israeli detention
Hamdan Ballal – the oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces – has been released from detention, it has been confirmed.
Hamdan Ballal and two other Palestinians left a police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, where they were being held on Tuesday. Ballal had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes.
The three had spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack, according to Ballal’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel.
The Israeli military said on Monday it had detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a what it described as a violent confrontation. On Tuesday, it referred further queries to police, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lamia Ballal, the director’s wife, said she heard her husband being beaten outside their home as she huddled inside with their three children. She heard him screaming, “I’m dying!” and calling for an ambulance. When she looked out the window, she saw three men in uniform beating Ballal with the butts of their rifles and another person in civilian clothes who appeared to be filming the violence.
“Of course, after the Oscar, they have come to attack us more,” Lamia said. “I felt afraid.”
No Other Land, a film about Israeli displacement of a Palestinian community, won the documentary feature film Oscar at the beginning of this month.
The documentary, which has Palestinian and Israeli directors, focuses on the steady forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta, a region in the occupied West Bank targeted by Israeli forces.
The film’s co-directors are Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. It highlights the parallel realities in which the two friends live - Abraham with his yellow Israeli number plate that lets him travel anywhere, while Adra is confined to a territory that only ever gets smaller for Palestinians, despite it being their homeland.
Despite the critical acclaim, the film could not find distribution in the US and was self-distributed instead. “I believe it’s clear that it’s for political reasons,” Abraham told Deadline about the lack of formal distribution.
In an acceptance speech after winning an Oscar, Abraham said:
We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger. We see each other, the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people which must end, the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7, which must be freed.
When I look at Basel, I see my brother but we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military law that destroys his life and he cannot control.
There is a different path. A political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say as I’m here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.
And why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe. There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.
(L-R) Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Basel Adra, winners of the Best Documentary Feature Film for No Other Land, pose in the press room of the 97th Annual Academy Awards on 2 March, 2025. Photograph: Maya Dehlin Spach/Getty Images
Lawyer for Oscar-winning Palestinian director detained by Israeli forces says he will be released
The lawyer for Oscar award winning Palestinian director Hamdan Ballal, who was attacked by a group of Israeli settlers, says he will be released from detention by the Israeli military (see post at 11.18 for more details).
Lea Tsemel, the attorney for Ballal, one of four co-directors of the No Other Land documentary, made the announcement. It is unclear when Ballal will be released.
Tsemel said on Tuesday that her client and two other Palestinians spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack.
She had earlier said they were accused of throwing stones at a young settler, allegations they deny.
Ballal had his house in the Israeli-occupied West Bank surrounded by settlers during yesterday’s attack in the village of Susya, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence group (CJNV) said.
Israel says Al Jazeera journalist it killed in Gaza was Hamas 'terrorist sniper'
On Tuesday, Israel confirmed it had killed an Al Jazeera employee in the Gaza Strip, accusing the journalist, Hussam Shabat, of being a “sniper terrorist” for Hamas, the AFP news agency reports.
Al Jazeera said Shabat was killed on Monday by an Israeli strike on his vehicle in northern Gaza. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemned the attack as part of a “massacre of journalists” in the Palestinian territory.
A joint statement released by Israeli military and Shin Bet internal security agency said that forces had “eliminated... a sniper terrorist from the Beit Hanun Battalion of the Hamas terrorist organisation, who was also employed as a journalist by Al Jazeera”.
Referring to Shabat, the Israeli statement that said security forces had “in October 2024... exposed the terrorist’s direct affiliation with the military wing of the Hamas terrorist organisation”.
Israel has repeatedly accused Al Jazeera reporters in Gaza of being “terrorist operatives” affiliated with groups like Hamas and has suspended the network’s broadcasts. The network vehemently denies these accusations.
Jonathan Dagher, head of the RSF’s Middle East desk, said in a statement that Israel’s accusations from 2024 “can in no way justify his murder, as they are based on documents that in no way constitute that the journalist had any affiliation” with Hamas’s armed wing.
According to the Israeli statement, “internal Hamas documents” proved Shabat had taken part in military training conducted by the militant group’s Beit Hanun Battalion in 2019.
Al Jazeera denies Israel’s accusations and says Israel systematically targets its staff in Gaza.
Israel’s state budget has become law, the Times of Israel reports.
The passing of the budget occurred before a 31 March deadline that would have seen Netanyahu’s government fall if not passed.
“The budget has everything we need to win on the front and on the home front. We all approached this budget with a great sense of mission and responsibility,” said finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“We promoted measures that will support growth and allow the Israeli economy to maintain its strength and continue to prosper. This is a war budget, and, God willing, it will also be the victory budget.”
Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, said on Tuesday that if Hamas continues to not hand over hostages taken on 7 October 2023, the Palestinian militant group will pay “a heavy price,” Reuters reports.
“Our main goal now is to return all the kidnapped people home. If Hamas continues its refusal, it will pay increasingly heavy prices in taking territory and thwarting terrorist operatives and infrastructure until it is completely defeated,” Katz said in a statement.
