It was shortly after Palestinian residents had finished their daily Ramadan fast that dozens of masked Israeli settlers entered the West Bank village of Susiya, according to witnesses.

Some of the settlers were armed with batons, others had knives and one of them was holding an M-16 rifle, the witnesses told the Guardian. Among them were a group of Israeli soldiers who escorted the settlers inside the village.

Minutes later, the settlers walked straight over to the house of Hamdan Ballal, one of the four directors of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land that documented the destruction of villages in the West Bank – a film condemned in Israel and described by the country’s culture minister as “a sad moment for the world of cinema”.

The settlers started throwing stones against his house, witnesses said, and chased Ballal to his house, beating him and eventually handing him over to the military. Handcuffed and blindfolded by the soldiers, Ballal, bleeding from his head, was moved a military vehicle.

As of Tuesday morning – about 18 hours after his arrest – Ballal, according to investigative sources, remained in custody at a police station in Kiryat Arba, in the occupied West Bank.

Moment Israeli settlers attack activists in West Bank – video

The Guardian has reviewed videos and photographs captured by activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence (CJNV) who were on the scene, spoken to witnesses – including Basel Adra, another of No Other Land’s directors – and contacted the IDF in order to shed light on an incident that sparked anger across the world.

Five Jewish American activists from CJNV who tried to help Ballal as he was being beaten by the settlers said that, before the masked attackers entered the village, another group of settlers, mostly teenagers, had interrupted the celebrations for the break of the daily fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, by shouting, pushing and swinging punches at Palestinians.

Masked Israeli settlers entered the West Bank village of Susya.

“They were eventually followed by the masked settlers who started throwing stones,” reads a statement from CJNV.

Video provided by CJNV showed a masked settler shoving and swinging his fists at two activists in a dusty field at night. The activists rush back to their car as rocks can be heard thudding against the vehicle.

“They destroyed our car with stones and slashed one of the tires; all of the windows and windshields were broken,” one of the activists at the scene, Josh Kimelman, told the Guardian.

Ballal being detained by the Israeli military near his home. Photograph: Raviv Rose/AP

Meanwhile, another group of settlers went to Ballal’s home, throwing stones at his car and house.

Ballal’s wife heard her husband being beaten outside and screaming: “I’m dying.”

Witnesses told the Guardian that an Israeli police car arrived on the scene, but officers “refused to get out of the vehicle and intervene”. Instead, they began interrogating the Jewish American activists.

“The police were there from the beginning and did not intervene,” said Adra. “While the soldiers were pointing their weapons at us, the settlers started attacking the houses of the Palestinians.

“Hamdan tried to protect his family and the settlers attacked him,” he added. “Soldiers started shooting in the air to prevent anyone to help Hamdan. He was shouting for help. They let the settlers attack him and then the army abducted him.”

Members of the activist group then entered Ballal’s house and saw blood over the floor, which a family member said was spilled when he was hit on the head.

Injured, handcuffed and blindfolded, Ballal was moved by the soldiers to a military vehicle.

Ballal’s car after the attack. Photograph: Handout

In a statement to the Guardian the IDF said there had been a violent confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis after “terrorists” threw rocks at Israeli citizens.

“Last night (Monday), several terrorists hurled rocks at Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles near Susya. Following this, a violent confrontation broke out, involving mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene,” the statement said.

“IDF and Israeli Police forces arrived to disperse the confrontation, at this point, several terrorists began hurling rocks at the security forces.

“The forces apprehended three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at them, as well as an Israeli civilian involved in the violent confrontation. The detainees were taken for further questioning by the Israel police.”

Ballal’s lawyer, Lea Tsemel, said on Tuesday she had not been able to reach him and the two other Palestinians detained during the incident, Nasser Shreiteh and Khaled Muhammad Shnaran.

Police told her they were being held at a military base for medical treatment, but she said on Tuesday morning that she had not been able to reach them and had no further information on their whereabouts.

According to media reports, the three are now at the Kiryat Arba police station. All three were injured in the settler attack.

This is not the first time that directors and crew members of No Other Land, and Palestinian residents of Susiya, have been attacked by settlers. CJNV shared details of at least 43 attacks in the village since the beginning of the year, perpetrated by violent settlers.

‘‘We came back from the Oscars and every day since there is an attack on us,” said Adra. “This might be their revenge on us for making the movie. It feels like a punishment.”

No Other Land, which won the Oscar for best documentary feature film, chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra, both from Masafar Yatta, made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with the Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

A still from No Other Land. Photograph: Antipode Films

The film has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International film festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, with Miami Beach proposing ending the lease of a cinema that screened the documentary. It has struggled to find a backer in the US and has instead been self-distributed.

Last February, Adra was also surrounded and attacked by masked Israeli settlers.

“We risked our life to film,” he said, noting that “soldiers are ordering us to stay inside our homes in the village, while those who attack and could’ve slaughtered the residents in their homes roam freely, masked, around the village”.

Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. Palestinians want all three for their future state and view settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.

Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centres.

The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouin, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained in place, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards, and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.

During the war in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during wide-scale military operations, and there has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians, as well as Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

The Associated Press contributed to this report