Must a Palestinian have an Oscar for the world to care when he’s attacked? (Sleman Altehe | +972 Magazine, 2025-03-25)

https://www.972mag.com/hamdan-ballal-attack-arrest-oscar/
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"When news broke of the settler ambush [on the Palestinian village of Susiya], the headlines focused almost exclusively on one thing: [Hamdan] Ballal’s Oscar win."

"... the emphasis was clear: the assault and detention of a Palestinian is notable because he holds international acclaim."

"Why must a Palestinian’s intellectual recognition be the basis for solidarity? Why does the global media insist on highlighting that Ballal is an Oscar-winning filmmaker?

"This kind of solidarity, grounded in fame or intellectual achievement, dangerously aligns with colonial patterns of recognition. It reproduces the logic that some lives — those legible to Western audiences — are more grievable, more shocking to violate, and more worthy of defense."

#WestBank #HamdanBallal
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe

It Took an Oscar: How German Media Discovered Settler Violence (The Third Draft - Hanno Hauenstein, 2025-03-29)

https://open.substack.com/pub/hannohauenstein/p/it-took-an-oscar-how-german-media
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“The settler attack on No Other Land co-director Hamdan Ballal rightly sparked outrage. Even Axel Springer’s outlets are covering the West Bank. What’s behind this sudden empathy for a Palestinian?”

“No Other Land recently won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, after receiving an award at the Berlinale last year – followed by a disturbing campaign led by Germany’s right-wing tabloid media, Berlin’s mayor, and the country’s justice and culture ministers, …”

“In much of #Germany’s media coverage this week, the Oscar was the hook: an award-winning filmmaker, attacked by settlers. The headline wrote itself. Unlike so many victims of state-backed Israeli violence – especially in Gaza – Hamdan Ballal was named, quoted, made visible. For once, newsrooms simply spelled out the facts.”

#HamdanBallal #WestBank
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe

By MEE staff. Published date: 28 March 2025 19:51 GMT

Academy Apologizes for Not Naming Hamdan Ballal Amid Outcry (Variety, 2025-03-28)

https://variety.com/2025/film/awards/academy-members-hamdan-ballal-statement-mark-ruffalo-1236351147/
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“The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has sent out a statement to its 11,000 members following mounting criticism over its lack of public support for Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary ‘No Other Land,’ who was recently detained by Israeli forces.

“On Friday, the Academy issued a follow-up letter explicitly naming Ballal and apologizing for omitting both him and the film from a statement sent earlier in the week.”

#HamdanBallal #Oscar #NoOtherLand
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe @israel

Jeremy Scahill Mar 28, 2025

[article contains quotes and viewpoints of #Hamas, #Qatar, and #Egypt.]

Hoda Osman, Youssr Youssef March 27 2025, 3:00 a.m.

"According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, the war is the deadliest conflict for journalists since the group began keeping records. At least 165 Palestinian journalists have been killed — more than the number of journalists killed during six years of World War II.

As the toll on journalists grew, drone journalists suffered a proportionately huge loss. According to al-Tabatiby, around 10 drone journalists were working in Gaza at the outset of the war. Five have been killed, and one was severely injured."

By Maysa Mustafa
Published date: 26 March 2025 21:35 GMT

"After an article reported that Rachel Zegler “trashed” the production of Disney's Snow White due to her stance on Palestine, thousands online are applauding her vocal stance this week despite the pressures of working with Disney and former Israeli army soldier Gal Gadot."

By Azad Essa
Published date: 27 March 2025 20:05 GMT

"...in the prompts provided by the teacher, Khalil is described as a supporter of terrorism; is accused of having celebrated the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023 on southern Israel; and students who took part in the protests at Columbia University are described as "Hamas students". "

By MEE staff
Published date: 27 March 2025 11:46 GMT

"The Palestinian movement confirmed the death and said that the attack would only strengthen its resistance.

"The occupation's targeting of the movement's leaders and spokespeople will not break our will, but will only increase our determination to continue on the path of liberation," it said.

Qanoua is the latest high profile Hamas figure to be killed since Israel resumed the war last week, in what appears to be a targeted assassination campaign."

By Syma Mohammed
Published date: 26 March 2025 21:18 GMT

"Masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (#ICE) agents approached and physically restrained the #Tufts University doctoral student while on the street in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Wednesday before taking her into custody for “pro-Palestine” views. She is being held at the South Louisiana Processing Center."

Hoda Osman, Farah Jallad, Sofía Álvarez Jurado
March 27 2025, 3:00 a.m.

"Al-Wahidi and his colleagues weren’t the only journalists attacked in Jabalia that day. A kilometer way, about half an hour earlier, Mohammed al-Tanani, a cameraman for Al Aqsa TV, was killed in an airstrike. Tamer Lubbad, the channel’s correspondent, was injured in the same attack. They, too, were in the “yellow” zone designated by the Israeli military, according to Lubbad.

“It’s clear to everyone that we are journalists,” Lubbard said, noting that they were wearing press gear. “We were targeted.”"

Rasha Abou Jalal Mar 27, 2025

"Over the past week, the streets of Gaza City’s western neighborhoods have been transformed into a densely crowded maze of tents, with laundry lines criss-crossing between them and the cacophony of children's voices filling the air. Over 142,000 people were newly displaced across Gaza, according to the United Nations, between March 18 and 23. Many are now living on the streets and in desperate need of food, drinking water, and basic shelter."

The Wise And Brilliant Israel Apologist

• Caitlin Johnstone

I used to be pro-Palestinian, you know. I thought Israel was wrong for carpet bombing Gaza and using siege warfare on civilians.

But then I ran into a very wise Israel apologist who changed my way of looking at things forever.

I was walking down the street and I saw him leaning against a lamp post, smoking a pipe as wise men do.

“Your shirt says Free Palestine,” he said from behind a plume of smoke.

“Yep!” I replied.

“So I guess that means you love Hamas then?” spake he.

I stopped in my tracks. I’d never thought of it that way before.

Could it be? Could my opposition to murdering civilians really be indicative of a deep affection for a Gazan militant group? Maybe I really did love Hamas and think everything it did on October 7 was great and wonderful?

“Is this really how I want to live my life?” I thought to myself.

“I — I — I…” I said out loud.

“Or perhaps,” he said with a raised eyebrow, “you just HATE JEWS??”

I fell to my knees.

Oh my God. He really had a point. What possible reason could anyone have for opposing military explosives being dropped on buildings full of children besides a seething lifelong hatred of adherents to the religion of Judaism? How could anyone possibly oppose siege warfare tactics which cut off civilians from food and water and electricity and fuel and medical supplies unless they harbored dangerously negative opinions about members of a small Abrahamic faith?

“Who… who are you?” I asked.

“That’s of no consequence,” he said, casually blowing a smoke ring through another larger smoke ring.

“But… but the children,” I stammered as my entire worldview crumbled before my eyes. “The civilians! They’re dying! Isn’t it bad that they’re dying?”

And then he delivered the coup de grâce.

“Have you considered,” he said before a pregnant pause, “… that all of those deaths are the fault of Hamas?”

It was like a 50 megaton nuclear explosion went off inside my brain.

I fell flat on my back. The world was spinning. A trickle of blood ran down into my hair from my ear.

I felt all the anti-colonialism leaving my body. I suddenly could no longer remember why I thought it was bad to rain down military explosives on a densely populated concentration camp.

Everything went black.

When I finally came to, the mysterious stranger was gone. But his wisdom and profound insights into Israel and Gaza will always live on in my heart.

Abbas’ first engagement, with Ahmed Abuhassira, took place before the war began, specifically on 27 August 2023.

The young couple had set their wedding date for 23 October 2023.

“I met him for the last time on 6 October 2023, then the war started the following day, and I was unable to meet him again until the date of his death on 26 October 2023,” Abbas, 20, told Middle East Eye.

Abbas found out that her fiance had been killed in an Israeli air strike on his home through the news.

“I was watching Al Jazeera and saw on the news ticker that the Abuhassira family’s house had been bombed. They were describing the location of my fiance’s house,” she recalled.

“I later learned that my fiance had been killed along with his entire family in an air strike that completely destroyed their home in the west of Gaza.”

As the Israeli blockade and bombardment worsened, Abbas isolated herself for months, and her relatives and friends assumed she was struggling with depression.

However, during this year’s Ramadan, Abbas began attending Taraweeh, the voluntary nightly prayers performed during the holy month, at the mosque. It was there that a woman, who would later become her mother-in-law, noticed her and was impressed.

"A few days later, she visited my family’s house and asked if I would marry her son. I met him, we talked, and I accepted his proposal,” Abbas said.

“I told him about the immense grief I had experienced, and he promised to make up for everything I had lost and everything I had gone through. He told me he wished he had known me a long time ago.”

Abbas and Shobaki signed their marriage contract, known as "Katb al-Kitab," a custom for couples in Palestine and some Islamic countries.

Abbas’ family organised a small gathering to celebrate the engagement, during which Shobaki and some family members presented the "mahr," a dowry from the groom to the bride, typically given in cash.

Shobaki returned late at night and called Abbas first thing in the morning when he woke up.

“He called me at around 10am and asked me to get ready to have an iftar meal with his family that day. I dressed up and eagerly waited for a call from him to tell me that he had arrived to pick me up, but it was past 3:15pm and he had not called yet,” Abbas said.

“I tried calling him multiple times, but his phone was unreachable, so I sent a message to his mother to ask about him, but she didn’t respond.

“I kept on trying to reach him until my cousin called and told me he had been killed.”

Archive Link w.o. paywall: https://archive.ph/avu0l

Lorenzo Tondo and agencies Tue 25 Mar 2025 16.00 EDT

"An Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces has been released from detention.

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."

Statement from Drop Site News on Israel’s Murder of Our Colleague Hossam Shabat: We Hold Both Israel and the U.S. Government Responsible (2025-03-24)

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/statement-israel-killing-hossam-shabat-journalist-gaza
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“Today, March 24, 2025, Israel killed journalist Hossam Shabat, a reporter for Al Jazeera Mubasher and a contributing reporter to Drop Site News, in what witnesses described as a targeted strike. Hossam was a tremendous young journalist who exhibited remarkable courage and tenacity as he documented the U.S.-facilitated genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. One of the few journalists who didn’t leave the northern Gaza Strip, Hossam was murdered in Beit Lahia, the site of some of the most intense Israeli bombing and mass killing operations.

“Drop Site News holds Israel and the U.S. responsible for killing Hossam...”

#HossamShabat #ProtectTheJournalists
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe @israel

· Hamdan has been released!! But is in the Hospital · Change.org (2025-03-26)

https://www.change.org/p/global-filmmakers-call-for-the-release-of-hamdan-ballal/u/33368154

#NoOtherLand #HamdanBallal
@palestine@lemmy.ml @palestine@a.gup.pe @israel