Watch on Deadline
Ballal wrote that the attack occurred on a typical Ramadan evening in late March.
I felt guns bashing my ribs.
Someone punched me in the head from behind.
(L-R) Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, winners of the Best Documentary Feature Film for “No Other Land”Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images
I fell to the ground.
I was kicked and spat on.
I felt immense pain and fear.
It was the worst moment of my life.
My wife and I both thought I would be killed.
We feared what would happen to my family if I died.
He was released a day later.
The attack on me and my community was brutal.
It received large amounts of press coverage, but it is not unique in any way, he stated.
The landscape here is beautiful and wide.
Year after year, we plant the land and graze our sheep in the fields.
To convince the world something needed to change.
My life is still at the mercy of the settlers and the occupation.
My community is still suffering from unending violence.
Our movie won an Oscar, but our lives are no better than before.
Dont turn away now, he concluded.
