Middle East latest: Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker is released after Israelis assaulted him

In the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities released a Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary “ No Other Land,” a day after he was beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by soldiers. Hamdan Ballal and two other Palestinians were accused of throwing stones at a settler, allegations they deny.

Palestinians and rights groups say Israeli forces in the West Bank usually turn a blind eye to settler attacks or intervene on the settlers’ behalf.

Israel’s parliament passed a crucial state budget on Tuesday, a move that shores up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s governing coalition and grants the embattled leader the chance at months of political stability even as public pressure mounts over the war in Gaza.

Israeli strikes killed at least 23 people in the Gaza Strip overnight into Tuesday, Palestinian medics said, including three children and their parents who were killed in their tent.

Hospitals have been flooded with at least 792 dead — including over 300 children — and 1,663 wounded in the week since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas and resumed heavy bombardments of Gaza. The Health Ministry’s count does not distinguish between civilians and militants.

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Here’s the latest:

UN envoy says Syria is at a crossroads 3 months after Assad’s overthrow

Geir Pedersen said Syria can return to violence and monopolies of power — or launch an inclusive transition, overcome conflict and realize the aspirations of its people.

He told the U.N. Security Council it “must not come to pass” that Syria backslides into conflict, fragmentation, and having its sovereignty routinely violated by external powers.

Pedersen said the other road, restoring sovereignty and regional security, “requires the right Syrian decisions,” but the country’s interim Islamist-led authorities can’t do it alone and need increased and continuing international support.

The U.N. special envoy, who will be returning to Damascus shortly, highlighted several priority areas for action and attention.

He asked whether the soon-to-be announced transitional government and transitional legislative council reflect Syria’s diversity, and include both men and women?

Pedersen said developments on a new constitution, accountability for crimes committed over decades, security, foreign fighters and the economy must also be addressed.

UN says Israel ordered another 100,000 people to flee north Gaza

The fresh Israeli evacuation orders affect as many as 120,000 people living in heavily damaged northern Gaza, and cover two hospitals and a one primary health care center, the United Nations humanitarian agency said Tuesday.

That’s in addition to 120,000 people already displaced in the week since Israel restarted the war in Gaza, according to U.N. estimates.

Israel says it ordered civilians to evacuate late Monday because its forces need to advance into two areas where Palestinian militants recently fired rockets.

Palestinian filmmaker describes attack by Israeli settlers that left him bloody and bruised

As stone-throwing Israeli settlers and armed soldiers approached his home, Hamdan Ballal could only think about his wife and three young kids inside.

“I told myself if they will attack me, if they kill me, I will protect my family,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday following a night in military detention.

Three weeks after winning the Oscar for best documentary, the Palestinian director was again pointing his camera at settlers who were attacking his village in the West Bank on Monday night. Soldiers aimed their guns at him and other residents.

“I can’t do anything when someone is threatening your life with their gun. I just keep filming them and that’s it,” he said, describing how one settler walked toward his front door flanked by armed Israelis in uniform.

The settler hit Ballal in the head, knocking him to the ground, and began kicking his head like “it was a football.” One of the soldiers used the butt of his gun to hit Ballal’s leg, he alleges.

Bloodied and blindfolded, witnesses filmed Ballal being detained by soldiers and driven away in a military vehicle amid the gathering dusk. He says he was kept handcuffed and blindfolded underneath an air conditioner overnight, and soldiers would periodically hit, kick and beat him with sticks. He has no idea where he was held.

Asked if he felt specifically targeted, he said: “When they say ‘Oscar,’ you understand. When they say your name, you understand.”

Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel avoids direct answers on West Bank annexation

Mike Huckabee, facing a U.S. Senate hearing for his confirmation as President Donald Trump’s ambassador to Israel, is facing close questioning from Democrats on his views on the potential for Israeli annexation of the West Bank, but he avoided giving direct answers.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, asked Huckabee whether he thought it would be wrong for a Jewish settler to push a Palestinian family off land they own in the West Bank.

Huckabee, a well-known evangelical Christian, stood by past statements that Israel has a “Biblical mandate” to the land. He also responded by saying he believed in the “law being followed” and “clarity,” but also that “purchasing the land” would be a “legitimate transaction.”

Huckabee also said that any Palestinians living in an annexed West Bank would have “security” and “opportunity,” but wouldn’t answer Van Hollen’s questions about whether they would have the same legal and political rights as Jewish people.

Protesters are removed from Mike Huckabee’s confirmation hearing as ambassador to Israel

Four pro-Palestinian demonstrators interrupted the hearing in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday to decry Huckabee’s ardent support for Israel.

One blew a shofar, a ram’s horn used for Jewish religious purposes, and another shouted, “I am a proud American Jew!” then “Let Palestinians live!”

Police quickly grabbed the protesters, but their shouts could still be momentarily heard in the Senate hallway.

Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas and one-time Republican presidential hopeful, has taken stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that sharply contradict longstanding U.S. policy in the region.

He has spoken favorably in the past about Israel’s right to annex the occupied West Bank and has long been opposed to the idea of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinian people.

In an interview last year, he went even further, saying that he doesn’t even believe in referring to the Arab descendants of people who lived in British-controlled Palestine as “Palestinians.”

Israel releases Oscar-winning Palestinian director after he was attacked by West Bank settlers

An Oscar-winning Palestinian director and two others have been released by Israeli authorities, a day after he says he was badly beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

Associated Press journalists on Tuesday spoke with Hamdan Ballal after he left the police station in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba where he was being held. Ballal had bruises on his face and blood on his clothes.

Ballal and other witnesses say he was attacked by Jewish settlers before being detained by the Israeli army Monday evening. The Israeli military said 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.

Ballal is one of the other directors of “No Other Land,” which won the Oscar this year for best documentary. The film chronicles the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages.

Israeli strikes in southwest Syria kill 4 people as Israeli soldiers clash with residents

An Israeli strike Tuesday in southwestern Syria killed at least four people as Israeli troops occupying the area clashed with local residents, Syrian state media and a war monitor reported.

Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said troops fired back at gunmen who attacked them, before launching a drone attack.

Syrian state-run news agency SANA said several people were wounded, including a woman. The report said Israeli tanks in the southwestern village of Koayiah also fired several rounds.

Britain-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at seven. The observatory and a town resident told The Associated Press that clashes had erupted between Israeli troops and residents when the Israeli troops fired.

Israel seized a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone inside Syria after Islamist insurgents toppled President Bashar Assad and seized power in December, with Israeli officials saying they will thwart any threats.

Israel will release the Oscar-winning Palestinian director detained in the West Bank, his lawyer says

The lawyer for an Oscar-winning Palestinian director who was attacked by Jewish settlers and detained by Israeli forces says he will be released.

Lea Tsemel, the attorney for Hamdan Ballal, said Tuesday that he and two other Palestinians spent the night on the floor of a military base while suffering from serious injuries sustained in the attack.

Israeli budget vote could also have implications on the war in Gaza, analyst says

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could feel free to move toward a lasting ceasefire with Hamas since his political allies, who oppose ending the war, have little incentive to trigger new elections while their polling numbers are down, said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

But the vote doesn’t mean Netanyahu will move in the direction to end the war, she said. She expected him to further his ultranationalist partners’ agenda to keep them as loyal allies and galvanize the nationalist right ahead of any future vote.

“Netanyahu is always thinking about the next elections,” Talshir said. “His goal is to make sure the extreme right will be in his government now and in the future.”

Israeli legislators pass state budget in a move that shores up Netanyahu’s government

Israel’s parliament on Tuesday passed a state budget, a move that shores up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition and grants the embattled leader the chance at months of political stability even as public pressure mounts over the war in Gaza.

The budget vote was seen as a key test for Netanyahu’s coalition, which is made up of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties who had demanded and largely received hefty sums for their constituents in exchange for support for the funding package. By law, the government would fall and elections triggered if a budget weren’t passed by March 31.

With its passing, Netanyahu buys himself what’s likely to be more than a year of political quiet that could see his government coast through to the end of its term in late 2026, a rare occurrence in Israel’s fractious politics. It’s a political win for Netanyahu, who faces mass protests over his decision to resume the war in Gaza while hostages still remain in Hamas’ hands, and over his government’s recent moves to fire top legal and security chiefs.

A 9-member Palestinian paramedics team still missing

Palestinian first responders say a nine-member ambulance crew is still missing days after being surrounded and targeted by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said the team was responding to airstrikes in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood of the southern city of Rafah when Israeli forces encircled the area early Sunday. It said Israel has refused access to the area since then.

The military said troops had fired on ambulances and fire trucks that it said had raised suspicion by moving without prior coordination and without headlights or emergency signals. It said those inside were militants, without providing evidence.

Israel says a Palestinian journalist killed in a strike was also a Hamas sniper

The Israeli military says a well-known Palestinian journalist killed in a strike on the Gaza Strip was also a Hamas sniper.

It shared what it said were internal Hamas documents purportedly showing that Hossam Shabat was a sniper in a Hamas battalion in northern Gaza and had received military training in 2019. The military said he had carried out attacks during the war, without providing evidence.

Qatar-based Al Jazeera said Shabat, a freelance reporter, was covering the war for the satellite news network when he was killed in an Israeli strike on Monday. It said he had been wounded in an Israeli strike in November.

Shabat, in his early 20s, was prolific on social media, sharing videos and other reports with more than 170,000 followers on the X platform.

Israel has banned Al Jazeera and accused several of its journalists in Gaza of being Palestinian militants. A number of them have been killed or wounded in Israeli strikes. The channel denies the accusations and says Israel is trying to silence journalists covering the war.

Palestinian co-director of Oscar-winning film is missing after being detained by Israeli military

One of the Palestinian co-directors of the Oscar-winning documentary “ No Other Land ” was still missing on Tuesday after being beaten by Jewish settlers and detained by the Israeli military.

Attorney Lea Tsemel told The Associated Press she had no information on filmmaker Hamdan Ballal’s whereabouts early Tuesday, around 12 hours after witnesses said he was attacked and detained in the occupied West Bank.

Ballal was one of three Palestinians detained in the village of Susiya late Monday, according to Tsemel, who is representing them. Police told her they’re being held at a military base for medical treatment, and she said she hasn’t been able to speak with them.

Basel Adra, another co-director, witnessed the detention and said around two dozen settlers — some masked, some carrying guns, some in Israeli uniform — attacked the village. Soldiers who arrived pointed their guns at the Palestinians, while settlers continued throwing stones.

The Israeli military said it detained three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at forces and one Israeli civilian involved in a “violent confrontation” between Israelis and Palestinians — a claim witnesses interviewed by the AP disputed.

The military said it had transferred them to Israeli police for questioning and had evacuated an Israeli citizen from the area to receive medical treatment.

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 23

Palestinian medics say Israeli strikes killed at least 23 people in the Gaza Strip overnight into Tuesday.

Nasser Hospital said it received four additional bodies from two other strikes in addition to the family of five.

In central Gaza, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said it received the bodies of six people who were killed in three separate strikes. Three others were killed in a strike on a house in the built-up Nuseirat refugee camp, according to Al-Awda Hospital.

In Gaza City, an Israeli strike on a residential building killed 5 people, according to the Health Ministry’s emergency service. Another 12 people were wounded, it said.