Palestinian film director and Academy Award-winner Hamdan Ballal was violently attacked 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 whereabouts are now unknown after Israeli soldiers then seized him from the ambulance that arrived to treat him, his co-director and fellow Oscar winner of the documentary No Other Land, Yuval Abraham, said on X.

Abraham, a journalist for +972 magazine, said in a separate post featuring a shaky cell phone video that masked settlers “attacked Hamdan’s village, they continued to attack American activists, breaking their car with stones”.

  • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    It can mean mean any sort of extra-judicial punishment. I agree it’s not the best choice of words, but context makes it pretty clear that he was not killed.

    • Mustakrakish@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Well we don’t know if he was killed, but its much more than a non-zero chance at this point. They’re tortuing him at the very least, just by the assault and kidnapping. Likely worse is happening, if not already.

    • homoludens@feddit.org
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      1 day ago

      “Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group.” Wikipedia (content warning - prominently displayed picture of a lynching victim)