Los Angeles, California - Movie stars including Joaquin Phoenix, Penelope Cruz, and Richard Gere have blasted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for failing to defend an Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker who was brutally attacked by Israeli settlers.

Hamdan Ballal co-directed No Other Land, which won Best Documentary at this year's Academy Awards. This week, he was assaulted by settlers and detained at gunpoint by soldiers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Unlike multiple other prominent filmmaker groups, the US-based Academy initially did not issue a statement.

On Wednesday, it sent a letter to members that condemned "harming or suppressing artists for their work or their viewpoints," without naming Ballal.

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By Friday morning, more than 600 Academy members had signed their own statement in response.

"It is indefensible for an organization to recognize a film with an award in the first week of March, and then fail to defend its filmmakers just a few weeks later," the members said.

"We stand in condemnation of the brutal assault and unlawful detention of Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal by settlers and Israeli forces in the West Bank," they wrote.

The Academy leadership's response "fell far short of the sentiments this moment calls for," said the members.

Following Monday's incident, Ballal told AFP the "brutality" of the attack "made me feel it was because I won the Oscar."