Arrests of Palestinian journalists since start of Israel-Gaza war

Since the start of the Israel-Gaza war, an unprecedented number of journalists and media workers have been arrested — often without charge — in what they and their attorneys say is retaliation for their journalism and commentary.

As of December 20, 2024, CPJ has documented a total of 75 arrests of journalists in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza and in the city of Jerusalem, claimed by both Israel and the Palestinians as a capital, since the war began on October 7, 2023. Israel arrested 72; Palestinian authorities arrested three.

Thirty of these journalists, including the three held by Palestinian authorities, have since been released, while 45 remain under arrest.

At least 10 of the journalists arrested by Israel are being held under administrative detention, a policy under which a military commander may detain an individual without charge, typically for six months, on the grounds of preventing them from committing a future offense. Detention can be extended an unlimited number of times.

(Editor’s note: These numbers are being updated regularly as more information becomes available. The tally includes all arrests documented by CPJ. As is our global practice, journalists who request anonymity out of concern for their safety are not named in the list below.)

More than one year into the war, at least eight journalists’ families have told CPJ that they have been unable to trace their detained relatives, despite reaching out via human rights groups, humanitarian organizations, and lawyers. Numerous journalists have been taken from Gaza to prisons and detention centers in Israel and the West Bank, where they say they have been subjected to mistreatment and torture.

CPJ has routinely contacted the Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk asking for comments on journalists’ arrests since the start of the war. In their latest response on September 29, the IDF said it “does not arrest journalists simply for being journalists” and that it detains “individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity.” The IDF said that “relevant suspects” were brought to Israel for detention and questioning.

The IDF said it could not fully address CPJ’s inquiry about individual journalists because not enough details, such as their ID numbers or full names, were included. CPJ had earlier advised the IDF that research limitations in Gaza prevented the provision of such information.

The IDF and the Israeli Prison Service did not respond to CPJ’s queries about the location of Ahmed Abdel Aal, Ahmed Agha, Amjad Arafat, Ihab Diab, Mahmoud Elewa, Imad Ifranji, Khalil Odeh, and Shadi Abu Sido.

In response to queries about allegations of mistreatment or torture of Agha, Momen al-Halabi, Mujahed al-Saadi, Osama al-Sayed, and Sido, the IDF advised CPJ to contact the Israel Prison Service regarding conditions of detention and to contact Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet regarding people detained in the West Bank.

CPJ’s emails to request comment from the Israeli Prison Service, the Palestinian General Intelligence Service about the arrests of Palestinian journalists, and Shin Bet about Palestinian journalists arrested in the West Bank did not receive any replies.

The allegations of abuse documented by CPJ are in line with research by the Jerusalem-based human rights group B’Tselem, which interviewed 55 Palestinians taken into Israeli custody since the start of the war. Most were subsequently freed without trial. The detainees reported, “Frequent acts of severe, arbitrary violence; sexual assault; humiliation and degradation; deliberate starvation; forced unhygienic conditions; sleep deprivation; prohibition on, and punitive measures for, religious worship; confiscation of all communal and personal belongings; and denial of adequate medical treatment.”

However, the number of journalists behind bars may be higher than CPJ’s records show as it has become increasingly difficult to verify information during the war. Due process is failing, with lawyers and families often unable to find out why journalists have been arrested.

CPJ is still working to research, document, and verify reports about the arrest of at least six other journalists in Gaza not included in this list. (Read more here about our methodology.)

List of arrests

Tawfiq AlsayedSaleem

On November 18, 2024, Israeli forces arrested Palestinian journalist Tawfiq AlsayedSaleem, while he was fleeing with his family from Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, towards Gaza City, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes and his son, AlaaAldeen Tawfiq AlsayedSaleem, who spoke to CPJ.

AlsayedSaleem, 48, is a member of the board of directors of Al-Istiqlal newspaper and editorial director of its website. AlaaAldeen Tawfiq AlsayedSaleem told CPJ that his father was against leaving Beit Lahia, but eventually agreed to leave with about 70 family members “after the great pressure and the destruction of homes over the heads of their residents,” and fears “that the occupation would bomb the house while we were inside.” 

Soldiers at the Israeli military checkpoint separating the northern Gaza Strip from Gaza City split the group, allowing the women and children through but keeping the men at the checkpoint, the son said. “They treated us badly, insulted us and mocked us, and made us take off all our clothes except our underwear,” he said, adding that the soldiers ordered them to throw all of their bags “so that the tanks would crush them.”

The soldiers released AlaaAldeen Tawfiq AlsayedSaleem around 5 p.m. and his brother about an hour later, he said. “But they kept my father detained even though he entered for investigation before us, and they arrested a number of relatives with him,” he said, adding the other family members who were released fled towards Gaza City.

STATUS: Currently Imprisoned

Nidal Elian

Israeli military forces arrested Nidal Elian, editor-in-chief at the satellite channel Al-Quds Today, October 22, 2024, in Beit Lahia, according to his wife Alaa Elian and a representative of the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer, who spoke to CPJ over the phone.

His wife told CPJ that the family fled their home in the Jabalia refugee camp after the Israeli military bombed their apartment building and moved in with relatives in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. According to his wife, on October 22, Israeli military forces issued an order through a drone’s loudspeaker for residents to evacuate the area because they were going to destroy it, and ordered residents to a school next to the Kamal Adwan Hospital. When they arrived, Israeli military forces separated men from the women and detained Elian, his father, brother, and nephew, according to his wife, who added that she only found out hours later after his father and brother were released.

Elian needs specialized medical care after donating a kidney to his son, according to his wife.

CPJ’s email to the IDF requesting comment on Elian’s detention was referred to their “situation room.”

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Jihad al-Din al-Badawi

On October 5, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Jihad al-Din al-Badawi, according to the Beirut based press freedom group SKeyes and his brother, Abed al-Hakeem al-Badawi.

Abed al-Hakeem al-Badawi told CPJ via messaging app on October 7 that his brother was arrested at a checkpoint north of Bethlehem in the West Bank on his way back from work.

Israeli authorities are currently holding al-Badawi at Etzion detention center, according to his brother.

An IDF spokesperson referred CPJ’s emails for comment on why al-Badawi was arrested and detained to the ISA; CPJ’s follow-up to the ISA did not receive a response.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mujahed al-Saadi

On September 19, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Mujahed al-Saadi, who contributes to the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed and the local broadcaster Palestine Today TV, during the night at his home in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, according to news reports.

Al-Saadi’s brother, Amjad al-Saadi, told the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes that the soldiers broke into his brother’s home, assaulted and beat him, and arrested him in his pajamas.

“They didn’t allow him to change his clothes or put on his shoes and they seized his cell phones,” he said. 

Al-Saadi was placed in administrative detention for six months on September 30. 

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Qutaiba Hamdan

On September 17, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Qutaiba Hamdan, who contributes to several outlets including the local news agency J-Media, at his home in Beitunia, 3 kilometers (2 miles) west of the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to news reports and the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes. Israel banned J-Media soon after the start of the Israel-Gaza war.

Hamdan´s father, Mohammed Hamdan, told CPJ via phone on September 17 that Israeli soldiers arrived at his son’s home at around 4 a.m., handcuffed him, and took him to an unknown location.    

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Ali Dar Ali

On September 5, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian journalist Ali Dar Ali, a reporter for the Palestinian Authority-funded Palestine TV, at his home in the Palestinian village of Burham, 12 kilometers (7 miles) north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and Hassan Abo al-Rub, manager of Palestine TV’s West Bank office, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on September 5.

Lawyer Khaled Ala’araj told CPJ that Dar Ali is being held in Ofer Prison, near Ramallah, on allegations of incitement on social media. Dar Ali has rejected all of the evidence presented against him, according to his lawyer.

Ala’araj told CPJ via messaging app on October 7, 2024, that an Israeli court ordered Dar Ali released on bail of 20,000 Israeli New Shekels (US$5305), pending a court hearing on incitement charges. Israeli authorities have not yet set a hearing date.

CPJ’s email to the IDF requesting comment on Dar Ali’s arrest and charges did not immediately receive a response.  

STATUS: Released

Ashwaq Muhammad Ayad

On August 31, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Ashwaq Muhammad Ayad, a reporter and photographer for the Jenin-based Al-dafa TV, at a checkpoint in the old city of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, according to the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA, the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes, and Palestinian freelance photographer Amer al-Shaloudi, who was with her at the time and spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Al-Shaloudi, who was detained with Ayad near Ibrahimi Mosque for two hours and subsequently released, told CPJ that Ayad was being held at Jerusalem’s Moscovia Detention Center for writing critically about Israel on social media.

Ayad’s father, Mohammed, told CPJ via messaging app on September 30 that a court hearing scheduled for September 15 was postponed until November 10 and that Ayad had been charged with incitement on social media for posts published between October 7, 2023, and May 2024 and for supporting a hostile organization.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Ramez Awad

On August 30, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist and photographer Ramez Awad at his home in the Palestinian village of Jifna, 8 kilometers (5 miles) north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and Amani Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Club, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on August 30.

Awad´s cousin, Amjad Awad, told Beirut-based regional press freedom organization SKeyes that Israeli soldiers broke into Awad’s family home in Jifna, checked his ID card and took him away without informing the family of the charges against him or where they were taking him. 

Awad’s brother, Rani Awad, told CPJ via messaging app on September 3 that Awad is currently being held in Ofer Prison and a court hearing has been scheduled for September 8.

On December 18, 2023, an Israeli soldier shot Ramez Awad, injuring his thigh, while he was covering Israeli military operations in the village of Jaffna, north of Ramallah, according to news reports and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Hamza Zyoud

On August 12, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Hamza Zyoud at his home in the village of Silat al-Harithiya, 10 kilometers (6 miles) northwest of the West Bank city of Jenin, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes and news reports. 

Zyoud’s brother Ahmed was cited by SKeyes as saying that Israeli forces broke down the door of the family home, searched the house and questioned Zyoud before handcuffing him and taking him away.

Local Palestinian journalist Mujahed al-Sa’adi told CPJ via messaging app on August 12 that Zyoud studies journalism at the Jenin-based Arab American University and works as a freelance journalist and camera operator for several media outlets, including BBC Arabic and Saudi-based Al-Arabiya. Zyoud also holds a press card identifying him as a freelancer, which CPJ has reviewed, and issued by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

Al-Sa’adi told CPJ on August 27 that Zyoud is being held at the Huwwara detention center, near the West Bank city of Nablus, and has been placed in administrative detention for 5½ months.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Assem Shonar

On August 3, 2024, Palestinian freelance journalist and camera operator Assem Shonar was arrested at his house by Israeli soldiers who raided the home in the Nablus town of Asira ash-Shamaliya in the West Bank, according to media reports.

Shonar’s friend, journalist Abdul Mohsen Shalaldeh, told CPJ via messaging app on October 25 that Shonar had previously worked with him at J-Media for a year, until Israeli authorities shuttered the outlet in October 2023, and that Shonar had been freelancing with other outlets ever since.

Shonar’s father, Mustafa Shonar, told CPJ via messaging app in November that his son was working on a documentary film.

He added that Shonar was being held at Ofer prison and was put under administrative detention for four months.

CPJ emailed the North America Desk of the Israel Defense Forces requesting information on the charges against the journalist, reason for his arrest, and conditions in prison didn’t receive a response. The IDF referred CPJ to Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, which did not immediately respond to CPJ’s subsequent emails.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Hazem Nasser

On July 25, 2024, Israeli forces raided the house of Palestinian journalist Hazem Nasser, a 34-year-old camera operator for An-Najah TV, which is affiliated with of An-Najah National University in the northern West Bank, and arrested him, according to multiple news reports.

The soldiers surrounded the house in the town of Tulkarem at about 4 a.m., broke down the doors, handcuffed and blindfolded Nasser in his bedroom, and took him to an unknown location, the journalist’s parents told those sources. Nasser’s mother said they also raided and searched the journalist’s brother’s house. Charges against Nasser have not been disclosed.

Nasser’s mother added that Nasser was summoned and questioned in June by an Israeli intelligence officer in Tulkarem who threatened the journalist by saying, “This is your last warning or you will be arrested.” Nasser responded that he was only doing his journalistic work, she said.

Nasser is married with two young children, his parents said.

In June 2023, Nasser was shot by Israeli forces in a raid on Jenin refugee camp, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and The Associated Press news agency, which said that an AP journalist saw the military shoot directly at Nasser who was wearing a clearly marked “Press” vest. Nasser, who was then working as a camera operator for Jordan’s Al-Ghad TV, was hospitalized with serious injuries, CPJ reported at the time.

CPJ previously documented that Nasser was arrested in 2021 and 2016 by Israeli forces and in 2018 by Palestinian forces.

On September 2, Nasser was placed in administrative detention for five months, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club and his lawyer, Fadi Qawasmeh, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on September 3.

Qawasmeh added that Nasser is being held at Al-Jalame detention center, 14 kilometers (9 miles) southeast of Haifa.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Hamza Jaber

On July 20, 2024, at 3:00 a.m., Israeli security forces raided the house of the Palestinian media student and freelance journalist Hamza Jaber in the West Bank village of Jaba’ in Jenin, aiming to arrest him, but didn’t find him. The officers arrested his brother Yousef instead, to force Hamza to surrender at an Israeli checkpoint, according to what Yousef, who spoke to CPJsaid he heard from the military commander of the raid, and according to news reports.

Hamza turned himself in on the same day at 1 p.m. at the Israeli checkpoint Dotan, and his brother was released later on the same day.

Yousef Jaber told CPJ via messaging app on October 28, that Israeli forces attacked his family, damaged their home, furniture, and cars, and confiscated all the computers from his family’s house, including his mother’s and brother’s computer. Yousef Jaber provided CPJ with photos of the damage to the two cars and the house caused by Israeli officers during the raid.

According to the August 15, 2024, Israeli Shomron military court document that CPJ reviewed, Hamza Jaber will be on administrative detention for 6 months. He is currently being held in Meggido prison.

CPJ emailed the North America Desk of the Israel Defense Forces requesting information on the charges against the journalist, reason for his arrest, and conditions in prison didn’t receive a response. The IDF referred CPJ to Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, which did not immediately respond to CPJ’s subsequent emails.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Rasha Hirzallah

On June 2, 2024, Israeli security forces detained Rasha Hirzallah, a reporter for the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA, after she was summoned for questioning to the police station at Ariel, an Israeli settlement about 28 kilometers (17 miles) south of the West Bank city of Nablus, according to news reports, and Hirzallah’s brother Osama, who spoke to CPJ.

The police told Hirzallah and her lawyer that she would be detained for 72 hours, Osama said.

On her social media accounts for X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram, Hirzallah prominently features her brother Mohammed Hirzallah, who died in November 2022 after being shot in the head during clashes with Israeli security forces in July that year.

On November 17, an Israeli court sentenced Hirzallah to six months’ imprisonment for incitement on social media and fined her 5,000 shekels ($US1,350).

Hirzallah was subsequently released on December 1, after completing the six-month sentence.

STATUS: Released

Mahmoud Fatafta

On May 29, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Mahmoud Fatafta, a Palestinian columnist and political commentator, at an Israel Defense Forces checkpoint, near the West Bank village of Abu Dis as he was driving with his son to the town of Tarqumiyah, 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) northwest of Hebron, according to news reports, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and the Palestinian press freedom group MADA.    

According to the same reports and Fatafta’s brother Hassan, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on May 29, Fatafta’s 10-year-old son was left at the checkpoint until a relative came from Ramallah to pick him up.

Fatafta, who is also a professor of politics and media at the Arab American University in Ramallah and the Palestinian Technical University Khadoury, often appears on TV and radio to comment on the ongoing war in Gaza and regularly contributes columns and commentary to the Wattan Media Network, among other outlets. On the May 15 anniversary of the Nakba,  the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Fatafta wrote a column accusing Israel of denying the existence of the Nakba and saying that Palestinians will no longer be victims of weakness and marginalization.   

Fatafta also provides commentary on his personal Facebook account, which has nearly 5,000 followers. The last post prior to his arrest included a quote by Egyptian scholar Abdul Wahab al-Mesiri and read “the more brutal the colonizer becomes, the nearer his end is.”     

On May 30, Fatafta’s wife, Rasha, told CPJ via messaging app that her husband was being held at a police station in the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, in east Jerusalem, and that a hearing will be held on June 2 about his Facebook posts.  

STATUS: Currently imprisoned  

Bilal Hamid al-Taweel

On May 29, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Bilal Hamid al-Taweel, who contributes to several media outlets including the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera, at his home in the West Bank city of Hebron, according to news reports, footage of his arrest posted on social media by the Palestinian news outlet Al-Qastal and the journalist’s brother Hamad al-Taweel, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

The video posted by Al-Qastal on its X account shows two Israeli soldiers taking Al-Taweel, who is blindfolded and handcuffed, to an armored military vehicle.  

Hamad al-Taweel told CPJ that the soldiers seized his brother’s phone and that he currently works for Al Jazeera. Al-Taweel is also very active on Facebook and Instagram, where he posts commentary and videos of the war in Gaza. The reason for his arrest remains unknown. 

According to CPJ research, Israeli forces arrested al-Taweel in June 2018. He was released ten days later, according to news reports. 

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mahmoud Adel Ma’atan Barakat

On May 19, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian journalist Mahmoud Adel Ma’atan Barakat, a radio producer and editor for the Wattan Media Network, at his home in the village of Burqa, 5 kilometers (3 miles) west of the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to news reports and his brother Muthana, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on May 19.

Muthana Ma’atan Barakat told CPJ that nearly 50 Israeli soldiers arrived at the family house in Burqa at around 2 a.m. and soldiers and an officer working for the Shin Bet entered the house and seized his brother`s cell phone and laptop.

“The Shin Bet officer told my mother that Mahmoud was arrested for incitement. They subsequently took my brother outside, handcuffed his hands and legs and took him away,” Muthana Barakat said, adding that his brother was being held in Ofer Prison, 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) southwest of Ramallah.

Muamar Orabi, general director of the Wattan Media Network, told CPJ via messaging app on May 19 that Barakat works there as an editor and radio producer. In recent months, Barakat posted footage on his Facebook and Instagram accounts of Israeli soldiers conducting operations in Burqa, a town east of Ramallah, and photos of the February resignation of the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh.

Bakarat told CPJ that he was released on July 6, 2024.    

STATUS: Released

Khalil Dweeb

On April 16, 2024, two Palestinian General Intelligence Service agents arrested Khalil Dweeb, a freelance camera operator who contributes to the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera, after he was summoned to a police station to pick up his cell phone, according to news reports and the journalist’s lawyer, Mohannad Karajah, who spoke to CPJ. Police had seized Dweeb’s phone some time ago, Karajah said.

The Bethlehem prosecutor’s office initially extended Dweeb’s detention for 24 hours to complete the investigation into allegations from the prosecutor’s office that Dweeb was in possession of an illegal weapon, according to Karajah and an April 18 statement from the independent Palestinian legal support group Lawyers for Justice.

The magistrate’s court in Bethlehem on April 18 extended Dweeb’s detention for five days at the request of the prosecution, according to those reports. In their statement, the Lawyers for Justice said Dweeb’s arrest was related to his work as a journalist.

Dweeb has been reporting on the West Bank for Al Jazeera. In March, he covered clashes between Palestinian resistance fighters and the Israeli Army in Nablus, the Israeli forces’ killing of a Palestinian resistance fighter near Tulkarem, and the effects of Israeli raids in Tulkarem’s Nur Shams refugee camp. Previously, Dweeb contributed footage to the local radio station Radio Bethlehem 2000 and J-Media Network news agency.

He was released on April 23, 2024.

STATUS: Released

Ahmed al-Bitawi

On March 29, 2024, Palestinian General Intelligence Service agents arrested Ahmed al-Bitawi, a reporter for Sanad News Agency, in the Palestinian West Bank city of Nablus while he was reporting on a march in support of Gaza, according to news reports and the journalist’s lawyer Ibrahim al-Amer, who spoke with CPJ via messaging app. The next day, al-Bitawi was transferred to Al-Junaid Prison in Nablus, those sources said.

On April 1, a trial court in Nablus extended al-Bitawi’s detention for 15 days, according to Sanad News Agency, the Beirut-based press freedom organization SKeyes, and al-Amer. The lawyer said that al-Bitawi’s detention had been extended on charges of possession of an illegal weapon and receiving money from an illegal organization. He rejected the allegations as false and said his client had been arrested because of his work as a journalist, without providing further details.

“There is no evidence to support these claims against him,” al-Amer told CPJ.

Al-Bitawi’s brother told CPJ via messaging app that he was released on April 8.

On September 7, Palestinian General Intelligence Service agents re-arrested al-Bitawi, after summoning him for questioning at their Nablus headquarters, according to the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed and al-Bitawi’s wife, Rana Mahameed, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Mahameed told CPJ that al-Bitawi phoned her from there and asked her to bring his laptop and cell phone, which were then confiscated. Later that day, he was transferred to Al-Juneid prison, she said, adding that she did not know why her husband had been arrested.

The journalist’s lawyer al-Amer told CPJ via messaging app on September 9 that the allegations against his client were similar to those of his previous arrest, namely possession of an illegal weapon and receiving money from an illegal organization.

CPJ requested comment via messaging app from the Palestinian General Intelligence Service on September 10 and after al-Bitawi’s initial arrest in March but did not receive any replies.

Mahameed told CPJ via messaging app that al-Bitawi was released on September 22.

STATUS: Released

Ismail al-Safadi

On March 28, 2024, Al-Safadi, a driver for the Palestinian Authority-funded Palestine TV, was arrested by Israeli security forces during their two-week siege of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, Al-Safadi told CPJ. Al-Safadi and his family lived near the hospital compound and were trapped in their home when the fighting and air strikes began on March 18.

“Before withdrawing, Israeli forces began to place explosives inside and under our homes to blow them up. We were afraid and left the house to show them that we were civilians,” Al-Safadi told CPJ via messaging app on September 9, describing the events of March 28. “They asked my wife and daughters to leave for southern Gaza and arrested me, my two sons, and two of our relatives.”

Al-Safadi said that the five men were taken to a detention center in Gaza, but he did not know the location because they were blindfolded and handcuffed for the entire journey. The media worker said he was beaten and slapped during interrogations, questioned about his work for Palestine TV, and his whereabouts when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. 

Al-Safadi told CPJ that he and his two sons were transferred three times to different detention centers. On May 3, one son, Islam, was released and Al-Safadi and his second son, Osama, were released on May 13, about 14 kilometers (9 miles) south of the rest of the family in Gaza City. A May 13 video on Palestine TV showed extensive bruising and sores on al-Safadi’s wrists, forearms, and shins after nearly seven weeks in detention. 

STATUS: Released

Yousef Sharaf

On Tuesday, March 19, 2024, Israeli forces at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City arrested 40-year-old Palestinian journalist Yousef Sharaf, who works at the new media department at the local Shehab Media Agency, according to SKeyes, and his relative Mahmoud Haniyeh, and a representative from Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer both of whom who spoke to CPJ.

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched a new offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians, including journalists.

Haniyeh, who is also a Palestinian journalist, told CPJ that Sharaf’s house was destroyed and several family members were killed in an Israeli bombing, after which he evacuated to Al-Shifa hospital. “Sharaf moved to the Al-Shifa medical complex west of Gaza City to live and finish his work there, until the Israeli occupation stormed it and arrested him on the 19th of March. We did not know any information about his place of detention until he was visited by a lawyer from Addameer.”

Addameer Director Alaa Skafi told CPJ that the organization’s lawyer visited Sharaf in the Negev prison on Wednesday, November 6, 2024. Skafi said that Sharaf told the lawyer that on March 19, he was in Al-Shifa hospital “alone with my family sleeping there, and the occupation soldiers asked me to surrender, so I surrendered, and they took me out to the outpatient clinics. There they stripped me and the rest of the detainees of our clothes, tied our hands and blindfolded us, and kicked us on our bodies and faces.”

Skafi said Sharaf told the lawyer that “the beating escalated until they started punching us with their hands, and tied our hands with plastic ties so tightly that the skin started to tear from our hands, and then they took us in a truck to an area with gravel, and they started asking me my name, and they learned that I am a journalist for the Shehab Agency and they found my pictures published on my Facebook account.”

Skafi said that Sharaf told Addameer’s lawyer that he was beaten with rifle butts for hours, and then was transferred from one prison to another until he ended up in the Negev desert prison. “After more than two months, Yousef Sharaf was brought before a court via cell phone, and the judge charged him with belonging to a terrorist organization,” Skafi said “Then he was sentenced to an unlimited prison term. In the past few days, he was brought back to trial, and the judge sentenced him to prison until the end of the war.”

Skafi said that an investigator from Israel’s Shin Bet security agency told Sharaf that he was arrested because he is a journalist, as he may have information about the Hamas movement due to his work.

CPJ emailed the Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet for information about the charges, health, accusations and sentence against Sharaf, in addition to information about how his trial was conducted, but didn’t immediately receive a response.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mohammed Nafez Qaoud

On March 19, 2024, Palestinian freelance journalist Mohammed Nafez Qaoud was visiting a displaced relative when he was arrested by Israeli security forces during their two-week siege of Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital, according to Qaoud’s wife, Asal Sabri Abu Taqiyya, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on September 3, and the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes.

The location of Qaoud, who contributes to the family magazine Al-Saada and Gaza’s Hamas government-owned Al-Rai Radio, was unknown until August 15 when the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer named Qaoud as one of 31 prisoners from Gaza that its lawyer had visited in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Rula Hassanein

On March 19, 2024, Israeli military forces arrested Rula Hassanein, a Palestinian freelance journalist and an editor for the Ramallah-based Wattan Media Network, without explanation, at her home in the Al-Ma’asra neighborhood in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, handcuffed and blindfolded her, confiscated her laptop and cell phone, and took her to Damon Prison, near the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to news reports and the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes.

She is being held on charges of incitement on social media and supporting a hostile organization banned under Israeli law, according to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA and court documents, reviewed by CPJ.

On April 3, Judea military court postponed her hearing for the third time, refused to grant her bail, and rejected her lawyer’s request that she be released to look after her ailing baby, according to news reports and MADA.  

In her posts, which include retweets, on X and Facebook between August 2022 and December 2023, Hassanein commented on the Israel-Gaza war, including her frustration over the suffering of Palestinians. She also commented on events in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including the shooting of two Israelis in the northern town of Hawara in August 2023 and the killing of an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint in East Jerusalem in October 2022.

On October 10, 2023, Hassanein retweeted a post on X showing a photograph of her in a sniper’s crosshairs with Hebrew text describing her as a Hamas Nazi journalist living in Ramallah, which she said Israeli setters circulated on social media groups calling for her arrest as part of an incitement campaign against her.

Hassanein’s family are campaigning for her release, saying that her health has deteriorated as a result of poor prison conditions.

On October 2, 2024, Shadi Brejah, Hassanein’s husband, told CPJ via messaging app that an Israeli military court had ordered the release of his wife in July, but the prosecutor had appealed the decision and the next court hearing was scheduled for October 8.

On December 12, Hassanein was sentenced to 11 months in prison and a fine of 5,000 shekels (US$1,381), according to media reports.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Imad Ifranji

Palestinian journalist Imad Ifranji, manager of the Gaza bureau of the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds newspaper, has been found to be in Israeli custody after he went missing during Israel’s attack on Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital on March 19, 2024, according to news reports and Ifranji’s son, Musaab, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on and on June 26.

Musaab told CPJ that, as soon as he found out about the beginning of Israel’s attack on Al-Shifa hospital on March 18, he reached out to his family in Gaza City to inquire about their safety, because the family home was in the vicinity of the hospital and one of his brothers told him that his father was at the hospital with other Palestinian journalists.

According to Musaab, for several hours after the attack the Ifranji family, knew nothing about the fate of his father or of any of the journalists who were at Al-Shifa until a phone call came from his father confirming that he was in one of the hospital’s corridors and saying that if they didn’t hear anything from him within two or three days it would mean that he had either been killed or arrested.

Musaab said that after hearing from his father there was a telecommunications blackout until the early hours of March 20, when he received a text message from his sister urging him not to call because Israeli troops had broken into their home.

Musaab said Israeli security forces stayed at his home for several hours, interrogated and mistreated his brothers and sisters, used his younger brothers as human shields as Israeli troops were withdrawing, ordered the family to leave for the southern Gazan city of Rafah and burned the house to the ground.

On April 15, after nearly a month without any news about the whereabouts or fate of his father, Musaab received a call from a released Palestinian prisoner, who didn’t identify himself, saying that his father was in Israeli custody.

About a month later, Musaab found a picture, published on Twitter by the Israeli-funded Arabic language bulletin Al-Waka, showing his father (third from the left) among other detainees. The caption described them as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who had been arrested at Al-Shifa Hospital. 

In May, the Ifranji family found out through a former prisoner who preferred to remain anonymous that Ifranji was being held at Barkasat detention center in Rafah, Musaab told CPJ, but they couldn’t confirm the whereabouts of his father.

Ifranji is a veteran Palestinian journalist. He previously served as the director of the Gaza office of Al-Quds TV and has worked for a variety of Palestinian media outlets, including the news websites PalTimes and Felesteen. On June 27, Mohamed Abo Khdair, editor-in-chief of the Al-Quds newspaper, told CPJ that Ifranji used to work as a reporter for the newspaper, before becoming manager of Al-Quds’ Gaza bureau.   

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Maher Haroun

On October 9, 2024, at 3:00 a.m., Israeli forces raided the house of Maher Haroun, a freelance journalist and media student at Al Quds Open University, in al-Am’ari Refugee Camp, a Palestinian refugee camp in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, and arrested him, according to local media reports.

Haroun was being held at the Hawara detention center, according to family members who spoke to CPJ.

The family members said that Israeli soldiers put all other family members in one room of the house, arrested Maher Haroun, and assaulted him outside of his house.

CPJ emailed the North America Desk of the Israel Defense Forces requesting information on the charges against the journalist, reason for his arrest, and conditions in prison didn’t receive a response. The IDF referred CPJ to Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, which did not immediately respond to CPJ’s subsequent emails.

On March 19, 2024, Palestinian General Intelligence agents arrested Haroun while he was covering a pro-Gaza march in the West Bank city of Ramallah and held him for questioning for three days, according to news reports, the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, and Haroun, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on May 15.

During his detention, Haroun was repeatedly questioned about his work as a journalist and his filming of the protests and was verbally and physically abused, according to MADA. No charges were filed against him and no hearing was held on his case, the same sources said. He was released on March 22.

As a freelance photographer and cameraman, Haroun has contributed footage of protests to some local media outlets, including the broadcasters Palestine TV and AnNajah TV.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Osama al-Sayed

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched a new offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians, including Palestinian journalist Osama al-Sayed, a reporter for the Hamas-funded broadcaster Al-Aqsa TV who also contributes to the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes and al-Sayed’s wife, Hadeel Hamdan, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on September 8.

Hamdan told CPJ that she did not know where her husband was until a lawyer with a human rights organization told her in May that al-Sayed was being held in the Sde Teiman detention center in Israel near the Gaza border.

“When he was being held in Sde Teiman, the Israeli authorities released a doctor who had been imprisoned with him and he told us that Osama had been tortured and subjected to 16-hour interrogations about his work as a journalist and people he had interviewed in Gaza,” Hamdan said.

In August, al-Sayed was transferred to the West Bank’s Ofer Prison and subsequently to Ktzi’ot Prison in southern Israel’s Negev desert, near the border with Egypt, his wife said.

Hamdan said she had not seen al-Sayed since October 7, 2023, when they were displaced from Jabalia refugee camp to southern Gaza.   

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Walid Zayed

On March 18, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Walid Zayed, a reporter and editor for the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera Mubasher, at his West Bank home in Ramallah’s Al-Masayef neighborhood, searched and vandalized the house, seized his computer, his personal cell phone, SIM cards, and journalism equipment, without giving a reason for his arrest, according to news reports and the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes.

Legal documents reviewed by CPJ show that Zayed is facing incitement charges over a tweet he posted on his X account on October 7, 2023, which includes a video by the Qatari-based broadcaster Al Jazeera showing Palestinians standing on top of a military vehicle and dragging Israeli soldiers to the ground.

On March 28, the court in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison extended Zayed’s detention until June 4, according to the Palestinian press freedom organization MADA.   

On October 2, Zayed’s father, Khaled Zayed, told CPJ via messaging app that a court hearing scheduled for September 4 had been postponed to November 20. He said Zayed’s mother had been able to visit her son in Ofer Prison and that he had lost considerable weight but was in good health.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mahmoud Elewa

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched a new offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians. Mahmoud Elewa, a freelance correspondent for Al Jazeera TV, and Mohamad Arab, a freelance journalist with Al-Araby TV, were among those held, according to multiple news reports. CPJ was unable to confirm further details about other journalists arrested in the raid or where Elewa and Arab were being held.

Arab and Elewa were among the first to report on the hospital raid and the arrest of Al Jazeera reporter Ismail Al Ghoul on March 18. Al Ghoul was released after about 12 hours in Israeli custody.

Elewa’s mother, Rida Al-Sharqawi, told CPJ via messaging app on September 5 that she did not know her son’s whereabouts until the daughter of a prisoner who was released in mid-July told her that Elewa was in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison. She was in good health but had not seen a lawyer, Al-Sharqawi said.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mohamad Arab

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched a new offensive on the Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians. An unspecified number of journalists, including Mahmoud Elewa, a freelance correspondent for the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera, and Mohamad Arab, a freelance journalist with Al-Araby TV, were among those held, according to multiple news reports. CPJ was unable to confirm further details about other journalists arrested in the raid or where Arab and Elewa were being held.

Arab and Elewa were among the first to report on the hospital raid and the arrest of Al Jazeera reporter Ismail Al Ghoul on March 18. Al Ghoul was released after about 12 hours in Israeli custody.

On June 19, lawyer Khaled Mahajneh told Al-Araby TV, which Arab freelanced for before his arrest, that the journalist was being held at the Israeli detention facility Sde Teiman, which multiple media outlets and journalists have said is a facility where Palestinian detainees are sometimes brutally mistreated. The lawyer, who saw the journalist at Sde Teiman, said that Arab did not know his location for 100 days after his arrest, until the visit.

The lawyer also relayed Arab’s testimony that said, “We face mistreatment and torture all day, including sexual harassment and rape. The beatings and insults never stop.” Arab, in the testimony that was published by media outlets, added that all the detainees, including him, were surrounded by police dogs all the time.

Arab, 42, also told the lawyer Mahajneh that the food quality was very poor and in small quantities, adding that “every four detainees can use the toilets for a total of a minute and are allowed to shower for one minute a week.”

Mahajneh told CPJ via messaging app that “Arab was questioned after 40 days of his arrest from Al Shifa hospital, where he reiterated that he’s a journalist working with multiple outlets and was accused by soldiers and investigators of being ‘a reporter of information between internal and external Hamas.’” The lawyer said Arab was not treated as a journalist, even after he told investigators that he was arrested while doing his job at Al-Shifa hospital. Mahajneh added that Arab was asked where Hamas stores its weapons, which he responded to by saying, “I don’t know. I’m a journalist and I was arrested while doing journalism.”

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Ismail Al Ghoul

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces soldiers assaulted Al Jazeera Arabic reporter Ismail Al Ghoul as he reported on a new Israeli offensive on Al-Shifaa Hospital complex in northern Gaza, and then took Al Ghoul and other journalists to an undisclosed location, according to Al Jazeera, and multiple news reports.

Al Ghoul was released after being held for almost 12 hours. In an interview with Al Jazeera, Al Ghoul recounted how he and several other journalists were assaulted by IDF soldiers, whom he said destroyed the journalists’ tent and damaged their equipment and press vehicles. Al Ghoul said the journalists were ordered to strip off their clothes in the cold weather, and were kept blindfolded and handcuffed in a room at Al-Shifa Hospital.  Although Al Ghoul stated that most of Al Jazeera’s crew was released, he could not confirm the release of every member, as their mobile phones, laptops, and equipment were destroyed by Israeli forces. The release of the journalists followed earlier U.S. State Department inquiries about his detention and calls by organizations including CPJ and Al Jazeera.

On July 31, Al Ghoul was killed in an Israeli drone strike, along with his colleague Rami Al Refee, as they were leaving Al Shati refugee camp, near Gaza City.

STATUS: Released

Shadi Abu Sido

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched a new offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians, including Shadi Abu Sido, a cameraperson on assignment for the privately owned Beirut-based broadcaster Palestine Today, CPJ was told by his cousin Rami Abu Sido and Majida Karajah, a lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer, via messaging app on September 5.

“Abu Sido was working as a cameraman at Al-Shifa hospital when Israeli forces arrested him. He already suffers from several medical conditions and he was severely tortured and didn’t receive any medical treatment. Israel accused him of being an unlawful combatant,” said Karajah, whose organization visited the journalist in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison on July 10.

“Former detainees who were released from Israeli jails told us that he was being held in an Israeli jail and that he could only see with one eye as a result of severe torture,” Rami told CPJ.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Khader and Ahmed Abdel Aal

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched a new offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians, including reporter Khader Abdel Aal of the Gaza-based local newspaper Felesteen Palestine, and his brother reporter Ahmed Abdel Aal of the pro-Hamas Shehab News Agency, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes.

“The Israeli security forces arrested Khader and Ahmed at the Al-Shifa Hospital, but we only have information about Khader, who was transferred to the Sde Teiman detention center and then to Ofer Prison on August 4,” Majida Karajah, a lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer told CPJ via messaging app on September 5.

She said Khader was charged with joining a terrorist organization under the Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows authorities to extend detention indefinitely or until a ceasefire is reached.   

KHADER ABDEL AAL STATUS: Currently imprisoned
AHMED ABDEL AAL STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Khalil Odeh

On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched a new offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians, including Khalil Odeh, a photographer for the local Gaza-based news agency Sabq 24. Odeh and his family had sought refuge near the hospital after their home in Gaza City’s Al-Nasr neighborhood was bombed, Odeh’s grandmother Malak Abu Odeh and Sabq 24’s editor-in-chief Mohammad Jarbou told CPJ. 

“While he was at Al-Shifa and prior to his arrest, he was filming videos and taking pictures for Sabq 24 from inside the hospital and other locations in Gaza,” Jarbou said on September 4.   

“Nearly a month after his arrest, some prisoners who had been released told us that he had been imprisoned with them in Ofer Prison and was in good health. But we have heard nothing else about him since then,” Odeh’s grandmother said on September 3, adding that the family had no information about the reason for the journalist’s arrest.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Ahmed Agha

On March 4, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Ahmed Essam Agha at his home in the Hamad Towers area in southern Gaza’s city of Khan Yunis, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes and Agha’s brother, Mohammad Agha, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on September 8.

Agha’s brother told CPJ that the Israeli forces arrested the journalist along with a number of relatives and he had heard that they had been sent into the field to detect explosives and Hamas fighters.

“Ahmed’s wife told me that the Israeli forces assaulted him and ordered them to take off their clothes. When the Israeli forces ended their raid on Hamad City [or Towers], they released one of our relatives who told me that they had used them as human shields, dressing them in different clothes in the course of two weeks and placing cameras on their heads to search for explosives and militants, and kept Ahmed under arrest,” Agha’s brother said.

He said the family had reached out to several human rights and humanitarian organizations but had not been able to trace Agha since his arrest. 

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Rami Abu Zubaida

On March 2, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Rami Abu Zubaida, editor-in-chief of the Palestinian news website 180 Investigations and a military analyst for numerous outlets, along with his brother Ibrahim at a checkpoint in the Hamad Towers area in southern Gaza’s city of Khan Yunis, according to Abu Zubaida’s employer and the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes.

Abu Zubaida’s brother Khaled was cited by SKeyes as saying that Israeli troops surrounded Hamad Towers and, via a drone, called on residents to leave the area through a safe corridor amid heavy gunfire and shelling.

“My brother Rami and other residents were surprised that a checkpoint had been set up for those displaced. As he approached the checkpoint, Israeli soldiers arrested him, blindfolded him and my other brother Ibrahim, and took them to an unknown destination,” Khaled told SKeyes.

On June 21, Khaled, told CPJ via messaging app and email that he had not heard anything about his brothers’ whereabouts for more than 110 days.

“Two days ago, we found out through a lawyer that they were arrested and are being held in the most horrific prison in the world, Sde Teiman. Rami has health problems with his back and we don’t know his current condition. Unfortunately, all the news that comes out from there, either from the news or from released prisoners, is horrible and that increases our concern and fear for them because we don’t know their fate,” Khaled said.

According to news reports, mistreatment and the use of torture against Palestinian prisoners are common at the Sde Teiman detention center in southern Israel’s Negev Desert. In June, Israeli authorities transferred hundreds of inmates to other prisons following a petition by human rights organizations to shutter Sde Teiman over allegations of severe human rights violations. In September, the High Court ruled that the facility need not close because conditions had improved and prisoner numbers had been reduced. 

On June 24, Khaled told CPJ that a lawyer had told him that Abu Zubaida had been moved to the West Bank’s Ofer Prison. On September 10, Khaled told CPJ that Abu Zubaida’s lawyer had been unable to visit him in Ofer Prison since June 30 as repeated requests had gone unanswered.

Lawyer Jenan Abdo of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel rights group told CPJ that it had filed a complaint against Israeli authorities for mistreatment, torture, and denial of medical treatment to Abu Zubaida.

Abu Zubaida has written for the news website ArabicPost, the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al-Jazeera, and pan-Arab newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed and provided commentary on Israeli-Palestinian news for the Istanbul-based broadcaster Al-Rafidain TV.

STATUS: Currently Imprisoned

Sami Al-Sai

Sami Al-Sai, a reporter for the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera Mubasher and the local broadcaster Al-Fajer TV, is currently being held in administrative detention in Remon prison, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainee Affairs and a copy of the administrative detention order, which CPJ has reviewed.

On February 23, 2024, Israeli troops arrested Al-Sai at his home in Tulkarem’s Artah neighborhood, according to news reports, the Palestinian press freedom organization MADA, and a video of his arrest posted by the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera.

According to MADA, twenty Israeli soldiers raided and vandalized the Al-Sai family home in Tulkarem, handcuffed Al-Sai and his brother Osama with plastic bands and took him away to an unknown destination without informing him of the reason for his arrest.

According to a copy of the administrative detention order that CPJ has reviewed, Al-Sai was placed in administrative detention for four months at a hearing that was held behind closed doors and chaired by military judge Ofer Shvitzer. Al-Sai is due to be released on June 22.

The administrative detention order says that the prosecutor accused Al-Sai of being a member of Hamas and acting to undermine the security of the state and the judge agreed that these reasons were enough to keep him in detention. The defense lawyer demanded that Al-Sai be released for medical reasons, because he donated a kidney to his son and needs medication, but the judge overruled this objection and said that the doctor at the jail said that Al-Sai is healthy enough to remain in prison.

Prior to his arrest, Al-Sai had been covering Israeli military operations in the city of Tulkarem, especially in the Nour Shams refugee camp, for the Jordanian broadcaster Al-Haqeqa al-Dawliya, the Tulkarem-based broadcaster Fajer TV, the radio station Shabab FM, and Al Jazeera Mubasher.

Al-Sai is also the founder and director of the news website Karmul, which provides news about the city of Tulkarem. Al-Sai extensively covered the destruction caused by Israeli military operations in the Nour Shams refugee camp.

Israeli military authorities are currently holding Al Sai at Rimon prison. Al-Sai’s wife, Amani Al-Sai, told CPJ October 8 that Israeli military authorities extended his administrative detention by four months by a military order dated June 22, 2024, which CPJ reviewed. Amani Al-Sai told CPJ on October 21 that Israeli military authorities extended Sami Al-Sai’s detention for four additional months, and that he is now scheduled to be released February 22, 2025.

CPJ’s email to the IDF requesting comment on Al-Sai’s arrest and administrative detention did not immediately receive a response.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Amr Abu Raida

On February 15, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Amr Abu Raida, who contributes to the Ramallah-based privately owned news agency Quds News Network, the local newspaper Al-Hadath, and the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera, while he was fleeing Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza’s city of Khan Yunis, according to news reports. Israeli forces stormed the hospital that day, searching for the remains of hostages, after besieging it for a week and ordering thousands of displaced people to leave.

Journalist Somaya al-Rumaisa was quoted by the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes as saying that Abu Raida was fleeing through what was designated as a safe corridor from Khan Yunis to the southern city of Rafah.

“We found out that the pretext for his arrest was that he was firing rockets, which is of course not true …. Amr was only a journalist and he just relayed the news,” she said.

Abu Raida reported on the situation in Khan Yunis and the destruction caused by Israeli airstrikes. On his personal Instagram account, which has over 75,000 followers, Abu Raida also posted videos of mass graves found near Nasser Hospital and videos of casualties caused by Israeli airstrikes.

In a statement on February 15, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that “among the arrested terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre is Amr Khaled Abu Raida, who is active in the terrorist organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and also participated in firing shells from the hospital.” 

On September 11, the Israeli broadcaster Kan 11 reported that Abu Raida had confessed during interrogation to belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and ambushing Israeli security forces in Khan Yunis. The PFLP is on U.S. and European Union terrorism blacklists and joined the fighting against Israel following Hamas’ October 7 attack. Kan 11 reported that the IDF had images of Abu Raida firing at an Israeli tank near Nir Oz kibbutz on October 7 but these were not broadcast.

Palestinian freelance journalist Mohammed Salama, who worked with Abu Raida in Nasser Hospital, told CPJ via messaging app on September 13 that Israeli security forces knew who was at Nasser Hospital because they were filming them with drones and had ample opportunity to arrest Abu Raida but allowed him to move around freely.

“We were together inside the hospital and no shells ever came out of the hospital, nor did Amr ever participate or contribute to that from anywhere because we were working together on the media coverage of events,” Salama said.

Abu Raida’s sister, Hanan Abu Raida, who has been unable to trace her brother, rejected the allegations about him. “I am ready to challenge Israel regarding all the accusations against my brother. And I wonder, if my brother did any of the things he was accused of, how come they haven’t made it public?” she told CPJ via messaging app on September 13.

Hanan Abu Raida said that she and her family were expelled from the displaced people’s camp where they were staying following the Kan 11 report. “We were forced to leave the camp after people watched the report on Kan 11 and they put pressure on us to leave because Israel may target us. So I hold Israel responsible.”

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Hamza al-Safi

Palestinian freelance journalist Hamza al-Safi, who contributes to the Quds News Network and the news website Al-Jarmaq News, among others, is currently being held in Al-Jalama detention center and no indictment had been issued against him, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainee Affairs and Commission of Detainee Affairs and a source close to al-Safi, who spoke to CPJ via phone and messaging app on April 9 and who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal.

On February 9, 2024, Israeli security forces stormed into al-Safi’s house in the West Bank city of Tulkarem and arrested him, according to news reports, the Beirut-based press freedom organization SKeyes, and the source.

The source told CPJ that Israeli soldiers broke into the house after midnight, searched it, and seized al-Safi´s photography equipment, two computers, several electronic devices and five cell phones.

The source told CPJ that al-Safi works as a freelancer contributing footage and other services to programs that air on several local news agencies and TV stations, including the Quds News Network, the news website Al-Jarmaq News, and the TV station Al-Madina. He contributed footage to the Quds News Network’s Al-Masar Program on Tulkarem.

CPJ’s email to the IDF requesting comment on Al-Safi’s arrest did not immediately receive a response.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Ali Abu Shariaa

On January 25, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian journalist Ali Abu Shariaa, head of sports news for the Gaza bureau of the Palestinian Authority-funded Palestine TV, as he was fleeing the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis for Rafah and held him for 23 days, according to his employer and Abu Shariaa, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on June 21 and 23.

Abu Shariaa told CPJ that, after instructing him and thousands of other Palestinians to leave the area in western Khan Yunis where they were staying through a route deemed safe, Israeli security forces arrested him at a checkpoint and seized his belongings, including his passport and money.    

After being ordered to strip and advance toward the soldiers, Abu Sharia was beaten, handcuffed with plastic straps, blindfolded, put on his knees and left out in the cold for hours with other prisoners until they were put on a truck and taken to an unknown location for interrogation, according to Abu Shariaa.

Abu Shariaa told CPJ that although he identified himself as a journalist, and a member of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and the Arab Journalists Union, he was mistreated during interrogation.

“After interrogation, I was transferred to another location where I was again handcuffed and blindfolded and I remained handcuffed and blindfolded for the 23 days of my detention,” Abu Shariaa said.

He added that inmates were deprived of sleep, beaten, verbally abused, and humiliated on a daily basis and that he lost 18 kilos during his imprisonment as a result of the scant food rations. He was released on February 16, 2024.   

STATUS: Released

Amjad Arafat

On January 12, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Amjad Arafat, a reporter for the Abu Dhabi-based news website Al-Ain News, after breaking into his aunt’s house in Al-Maghazi camp in central Gaza, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes and a Facebook post by his brother Rafat Arafat. 

The security forces held men and women in different rooms, and arrested Arafat and three other relatives and took them away, Arafat’s brother told told SKeyes, adding that the family were staying with their aunt after being displaced from Gaza City.

On September 4, Saleh Mahammed, a lawyer hired by Arafat’s family to find out what has happened to him since his arrest, told CPJ via messaging app that he contacted the IDF department responsible for Palestinian detainees in July.

“Up until now we haven’t received a reply to our inquiry, which is whether or not Amjad is being held by them,” Mohammed added. “Under Israeli law, they have three months to respond to us and that period can be extended for a further six months.”

Arafat covered the impact of the Gaza war for Al-Ain News, including the rising prices of food and the accumulation of garbage on the streets of Gaza. Prior to the war, Arafat contributed to the independent news websites Raseef22 and the Noonpost.

STATUS: Currently Imprisoned

Tareq Taha

On January 11, 2024, Israeli police arrested Palestinian journalist Tareq Taha, editor at the Haifa-based news website Arab 48, after summoning him for questioning over a post on his personal Instagram account to the police station at the town of Tamra, 28 kilometers (18 miles) east of Haifa, according to news reports, his employer, and the Israeli daily Haaretz.    

According to Haaretz, Taha posted a video showing a Palestinian flag and the word “resisting” along with a picture of Jewish Israeli civilians carrying weapons. The caption of the picture was written in Arabic and read “academic year brought to you by M16,” referring to the military rifle. According to a CPJ review, the story is no longer available on Taha’s Instagram account, but the Haaretz article shows screenshots of the story. 

As a result of this Instagram story, Taha was arrested on suspicion of incitement, disturbing the public peace, and conspiring to commit an offense, according to Haaretz and his employer.

Taha was held in custody for three days. A  Haifa Magistrate Court judge released him on bail of 5,000 shekels (US$1,362) on January 14, placed him under house arrest for five days and banned him from using social media for a week, according to Haaretz, news reports, and Taha’s employer. 

STATUS: Released.

Hamad Taqatqa

On December 26, 2023, Israeli military forces arrested Hamad Taqatqa from his West Bank home in Beit Fajjar town, 29 kilometers (18 miles) south of Bethlehem, handcuffed and blindfolded him, seized three cell phones and a Canon camera, and took him away, according to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, the Beirut-based regional press freedom organization SKeyes, and news reports.

Taqatqa contributes to the Bethlehem-based radio station Radio Baladna and the news agency Palestine News Network (PNN), among others.

On January 11, 2024, the military court in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison, where Taqatqa is being held, charged him with incitement on social media, supporting a terrorist organization, and influencing public opinion in a way that may harm public order, according to his brother Wael Taqatqa, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on May 24, and court documents reviewed by CPJ.

The charges relate to several posts he shared on his Facebook and Telegram accounts, which have 13,000 followers and over 8,000 subscribers respectively, between October 7 and 10, 2023, the court documents show.

On October 2, Wael Taqatqa told CPJ via messaging app that his brother is being held in northern Israel’s Megiddo Prison and that an Israeli court on August 28 extended Taqatqa’s detention until December 10. 

On December 10, an Israeli military court sentenced Taqatqa to 15 months in prison and a fine of 6,000 shekels (US$1,681), according to his brother and news reports.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mohamed al-Rimawi

On December 22, 2023, Israeli soldiers arrested Palestinian journalist Mohamed al-Rimawi, who works at the Ramallah-based Awda TV of the Radio and Television Commission, after a dawn raid on his home in the West Bank city of Beit Rima, according to his outlet, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and the Palestinian Authority-funded Palestine TV.

In a phone call, al-Rimawi told CPJ on October 2, 2024, that he was released unconditionally on January 16 after being held for more than three weeks in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison, where he was questioned about his work as a journalist.

STATUS: Released

Hatem Hamdan

On December 16, 2023, Israeli forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Hatem Hamdan at the Awarta checkpoint, south of the West Bank city of Nablus, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, news reports, and a Facebook post by his sister-in-law. These reports said that Hamdan’s car was seized. Hamdan is a freelance reporter and cameraman who has been contributing updates and commentary since the start of the war, including on the release of prisoners and the situation in the West Bank, to different broadcasters, including Jordan’s Al-Haqiqa TV, the Yemeni channel Al-Hawaia, the Nablus-based An-Najah TV, and the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera.                            

Prior to that, Hamdan worked for the news agency J-Media covering news including Israeli seizures of land and homes north of the West Bank city of Ramallah and the throwing of Molotov cocktails at Israeli troops in Ramallah. In early September 2023, Palestinian intelligence agents arrested Hamdan and held him for questioning for four days in the West Bank city of Al-Bireh, according to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA and a Facebook post by Hamdan.

Hamdan was released on August 14, after completing his administrative detention sentence.

STATUS: Released

Ihab Diab

On December 12, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Ihab Diab, a photographer and camera operator for Ain Media, along with 21 other family members at his uncle’s house in Gaza City, his brother Basem Diab told CPJ via messaging app on September 4, 2024.

“We were surprised by the arrival of tanks in front of my uncle’s house. If we hadn’t talked to them in English and told them that we were civilians, they would have killed us,” Basem Diab said. “They arrested all of us and after interrogations they released us. But they arrested my brother Ihab and put him in a tank.”

He added that the journalist’s left hand had been injured by shrapnel in an airstrike on a neighbors’ house two weeks prior to his arrest.

“He remained missing until I reached out to the Red Cross on September 2 and they told me that he was being held in the Negev Prison,” he said, referring to Ktzi’ot Prison in southern Israel’s Negev desert, near the border with Egypt,

On September 4, Majida Karajah, a lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer, told CPJ via messaging app that the IDF told her Diab was not in their custody.

Ain Media’s director Shrouq Al Aila is one of CPJ’s 2024 International Press Freedom Award winners.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Ikhlas Sawalha

On December 12, 2023, Israeli military forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Ikhlas Sawalha at the Deir Sharaf checkpoint, west of the West Bank city of Nablus, after searching her car, and took her to Damon Prison near the northern Israeli city of Haifa, according to news reports.

Several charges were brought against Sawalha related to her work as a journalist and a hearing was set for December 19, the Palestinian press freedom group MADA reported.

On December 21, Ofer military court placed Sawalha in administrative detention for six months, according to the Commission of Detainees Affairs, which supports Palestinian prisoners, MADA, and the journalist’s sister who spoke to CPJ on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisals.

According to CPJ’s review of Sawalha’s Facebook account, she is a media graduate from the West Bank’s University of Birzeit. Sawalha runs a YouTube channel, with 664 subscribers, where she has posted reports on events calling for the release of Palestinian prisoners and an interview she did for the Quds Feed Network, a Palestinian media network. Sawalha’s sister Walla told CPJ that Sawalha also worked with a local charity teaching journalism to students.

On February 8, Sawalha’s lawyer, Hassan Abbadi, described on Facebook his visit to the journalist in Damon Prison where he said conditions were poor, with overcrowded cells, water leaking from the ceiling, bad food, and bed bugs.

Sawalha was released on August 9, 2024, according to Sawalha’s sister, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on October 2.

STATUS: Released

Osama Dabour

On December 11, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance photographer and camera operator Osama Dabour, who works for the pro-Islamic Jihad broadcaster Al-Quds Today, in a school in Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes and Dabour’s wife, Amani al-Basyouni, who spoke to CPJ on September 4.

Al-Basyouni, who is displaced with her two children in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah, told CPJ that the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs had notified her in June that Dabour was being held in Ktzi’ot Prison in southern Israel’s Negev desert, near the border with Egypt.

Duaa Abu Ein, a lawyer for the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs, told CPJ on September 4 that the Israeli authorities had confirmed that Dabour was in the Ktzi’ot Prison.

“They told us that he had been arrested because he is a journalist, which is strange because they usually don’t say this,” he said. 

On September 18, a lawyer for the Palestinian Commission of Detainee Affairs met Dabour in prison and the journalist told him that he was severely beaten during his arrest, forced to strip naked, and the soldiers took $2,700 from him.

Dabour said the conditions in jail were very bad and he had been regularly beaten, deprived of food, humiliated, and had not received medical treatment for skin diseases, Abu Ein said.

Abu Ein said that since October 7 the majority of detainees from Gaza held in Israeli prisons have been subjected to torture, sexual harassment, and mistreatment, according to interviews that his organization has conducted with scores of prisoners through its work in providing them with legal aid. 

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Diaa Al-Kahlout

On December 7, 2023, Palestinian journalist Diaa Al-Kahlout, chief bureau correspondent for the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Araby al-Jadeed, was arrested from the Al-Souk area in Beit Lahya, a city in northern Gaza, along with an unknown number of family members, according to a statement by his outlet and a report by Beirut-based news website Al-Modon.

On January 9, Al-Kahlout was released from Kerem Shalom crossing along with other Palestinian men who were held under Israeli custody, according to his outlet. In a video posted by the outlet after his release, Al-Kahlout said that he faced mistreatment and violence from Israeli officers, including the Shin Bet, and that while being held at a military base he was questioned about an article, published in 2018 by his outlet but written by a different journalist, which described details about Sayeret Matkal, the Israeli military unit, and its operations abroad.

STATUS: Released

Mosab Abu Toha

On November 19, 2023, the award-winning Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha was detained and questioned by Israeli forces as he was fleeing into southern Gaza with his family, according to multiple news reports. He was released the following day, those sources said. Abu Toha recently wrote for The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Atlantic about the impact of Israeli strikes on his neighborhood. He was released on November  21. “I’m safe but I still have severe pain in my nose and teeth after being beaten by the Israeli army,” Abu Toha posted on Facebook on November 24. “I gave them all my family’s passports, including my American son’s passport but they didn’t return anything to me. Also my clothes and my children’s were taken and not returned to me. No wallet, no money, no credit cards. Everything was confiscated.”

The IDF said in a statement that Abu Toha was taken into questioning because of “intelligence indicating of a number of interactions between several civilians and terror organizations inside the Gaza Strip,” according to The Times of Israel and CNN.

STATUS: Released

Tarek el-Sharif

On November 19, 2023, Palestinian journalist Tarek el-Sharif, the host of the call-in radio show “With the People” on the West Bank-based Raya FM station, was arrested by Israeli soldiers at his home in Ramallah, West Bank, after a dawn raid, according to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, the London-based news website The New Arab, and the journalist’s wife, Suha Tamim, who spoke to CPJ over the phone.

Tamim said el-Sharif was being held at Ofer Prison and was arrested because of his journalism, specifically his reporting on Gaza and his program “With the People,” adding that el-Sharif did not cover politics.

Tamim told CPJ in November that el-Sharif’s lawyer had not been informed of the reason for his arrest. In December, he was charged with incitement, which can carry a sentence of up to two years, according to human rights groups in the region.

On September 18, Al-Sharif was released from Ofer Prison after serving 10 months on charges of incitement, news videos showed.

STATUS: Released

Ibrahim al-Zouhairy

On November 18, 2023, Palestinian journalist Ibrahim al-Zouhairy, a contributor to Al-Hadath news website, was arrested by Israeli forces who broke into his West Bank family home in Burham town, northern Ramallah, according to his sister, journalist Hala al-Zouhairy and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, which published photos of the damage to the house.

Hala al-Zouhairy said that soldiers assaulted Ibrahim al-Zouhairy and another brother, Mohammad, a law student at the West Bank’s Birzeit University, arrested them both without explanation, and threatened to kill the family. She said that their lawyers had no information about the reason for their arrest.

Hala al-Zouhairy, told CPJ via messaging app on September 24 that Ibrahim al-Zouhairy is being held in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison under administrative detention that was extended for six months on an unknown date and she had no information about his health condition.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Abdalafo Bassam Zaghir

On November 17, 2023, Palestinian freelance photographer and activist Abdalafo Bassam Zaghir was arrested by Israeli soldiers at Damascus gate near Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, according to the Quds News Network, the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and Sanad News Agency. He was released on November 21.

STATUS: Released

Hamza Radwan

On November 16, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Hamza Radwan, who works for Gaza’s nonprofit Youth Media Centre, at the Netzarim checkpoint in Gaza City as he was trying to flee southwards, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom organization SKeyes and Radwan’s father, Akram Radwan.

On September 3, Radwan’s father told CPJ via messaging app that, after months without news, a prisoner who was freed from Ktzi’ot Prison in southern Israel’s Negev desert in late May 2 told him that Radwan was being held there. The journalist had previously been held in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison and in southern Israel’s Nafha Prison, the prisoner told Akram Radwan.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Alaa Sarraj

On November 16, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian journalist Alaa Sarraj, a photographer for local production company Ain Media, on Gaza City’s Salah al-Din Street, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and a source close to Sarraj, who requested anonymity and who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on June 21 and 24. 

The anonymous source, told SKeyes that Sarraj was arrested near the former Israeli settlement of Neztarim, 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) southwest of Gaza City, as he was fleeing the city for the southern Gaza Strip.

The anonymous source told CPJ via messaging app on June 21 that the family recently found out through a friend who was imprisoned with him in the same location that he is being held in Nafha Prison, 69 kilometers (42 miles) south of the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.  

The source said that her brother used to make advertisements for different local businesses, including retail stores and restaurants, and for a time he worked for nonprofit Islamic Relief, but when the war in Gaza started on October 7, 2023, he began to work as a journalist at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital along with his cousin Roshdi Sarraj, the founder of Ain Media who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on October 22, 2023.     

Mohammed Sarraj, Alaa’s father, told CPJ on October 29 that there was no new information on his case. He previously told CPJ that his son has suffered a broken rib and skin disease in custody.  

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mervat Al Azze

On November 16, 2023, Palestinian journalist Mervat Al Azze was placed under arrest after being questioned by Israeli police in Jerusalem over Facebook posts. Al Azze, a part-time producer covering Gaza for NBC, was charged with incitement and transferred to a military court in Jerusalem, according to the London-based news website The New Arab, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, and her lawyer Jad Qadamani who told CPJ via messaging app that Al Azze had been held and interrogated for more than three days.  Al Azze was released in the hostage exchange deal between Israel and Hamas on November 28.

STATUS: Released

Momen al-Halabi

On November 12, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian journalist Momen al-Halabi, new media editor at the pro-Islamic Jihad Al-Quds Radio, at a checkpoint near Gaza City’s Kuwait roundabout as he was trying to flee southwards, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes and Al-Halabi’s wife, Safaa al-Jaabari who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on September 13.

Al-Jaabari told CPJ that the family had been forced to leave Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood for southern Gaza on October 14, but Al-Halabi stayed behind to report on the war.

“He hadn’t seen us for a month so he decided to flee as well. And it didn’t not occur to us that he might be arrested because he is a journalist and has nothing to do with military work. But unfortunately, he was arrested,” she said. 

Al-Jabaari said that a human rights lawyer told her that the journalist had initially been held in Israel’s Sde Teiman and Petah Tikva detention centers and the West Bank’s Ofer Prison. Since March, he has been in southern Israel’s Nafha Prison, 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of Beersheba city, under the Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows authorities to extend detention indefinitely or until a ceasefire is reached, she was told. 

Safaa al-Jaabari added that her husband, who suffers from varicose veins, had been tortured in all those detention centers, according to the lawyer.

Al-Jaabari also told CPJ that Israeli airstrikes destroyed their family home in Gaza City in December, killing Al-Halabi’s his father and brother. 

Raed Obeid, director of Al-Quds Radio, told CPJ via messaging app on September 13 that Al-Halabi had worked for the station since 2020 and remained committed to his work until it stopped broadcasting as a result of the siege of Gaza City in November.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mohamad al-Atrash

On November 8, 2023, Israeli soldiers arrested journalist Mohamad al-Atrash, a host for the program “People’s Discussions” at the local Palestinian Radio Alam, after raiding his house in Hebron, West Bank, according to the radio, the London-based news website The New Arab, and the Palestinian press freedom group MADA. Al-Atrash’s wife told Radio Alam that he was arrested and his phone confiscated in a dawn raid.

Since the beginning of the war, Al-Atrash had been reporting on a daily basis on the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, including airstrikes, shortages of fuel at hospitals, and the rising death toll, as well as the war’s impact on the West Bank. He also shares commentary on his personal Facebook account, which has nearly 10,000 followers. 

Radio Alam quoted al-Atrash’s lawyer, Khaled al-Araj, as saying that at a November 26 hearing Israeli prosecutors indicted al-Atrash for incitement over posts on his personal Facebook and Instagram accounts, rejected his bail, and extended his detention until the end of his trial without specifying a date.

Al-Atrash was released on June 6, according to a video of his release published by the Palestinian news agency Sahat and a report by the Palestinian news website Nabd.  

STATUS: Released

Amer Abu Arafa

On November 8, 2023, Israeli soldiers arrested reporter Amer Abu Arafa, a freelance reporter who works for the London-based Quds Press agency and Shehab news agency, after raiding his house in Hebron, West Bank, according to the Quds Press agency, the London-based news website The New Arab, the Palestinian press freedom group MADA, and the journalist’s brother Ammar Abu Arafa, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app. Ammar Abu Arafa told CPJ that Israeli soldiers broke down their door, raided their house, assaulted his brother, and confiscated his phone. He noted that his brother has health issues and requires medication for paranasal sinuses.

Amer Abu Arafa, 39, was previously arrested and placed under administrative detention in July 2022 without charges or trial for eight months, according to his news outlet, Ultra Palestine news website, and his brother, who told CPJ that Amer Abu Arafa was only freed four months ago. Abu Arafa’s wife, Safa Hroub, told CPJ that her husband wasn’t notified of any charges against him and that he has been prevented from seeing a lawyer or his family. She said he was placed in administrative detention for six months on November 19.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Mohammad Ayad

Palestinian freelance journalist Mohammad Ayad, who contributes to the news websites Al-Qastal and the Quds News Network, is being held in Ofer Prison on charges of incitement, according to his wife, Sireen Awad, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on March 18.

On November 7, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Ayad at his home in the West Bank village of Abu Dis, 11 kilometers (7 miles) east of Jerusalem, according to news reports and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate.  

“My husband works as a freelance journalist and he was charged with incitement because of Facebook posts, even though most of them fell within the scope of his journalistic work,” Ayad´s wife told CPJ, adding that her husband had yet to stand trial.

Ayad covered local news in Abu Dis, including confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces, the release of Palestinian prisoners, assaults on Palestinians by Israeli security forces, and activities for children. He also made a video for the Palestinian Bar Association as part of a campaign for the release of Palestinian prisoners and a Ramadan program for the Abu Dis Youth Club. 

Prior to his arrest, Ayad posted on his personal Facebook account comments critical of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, saying that he does not represent him and questioning his position and views following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7.

On October 13, he posted the picture of an Israeli soldier lying on the ground and covering his face while somebody put a foot on his neck and a slogan that reads “our army, the proud army, destroyed the oppressive army.” On October 8, he posted a picture of a destroyed police station in Sderot, Israel.  

Ayad was released on July 5, 2024.

STATUS: Released

Huthifa Abu Jamous

On November 6, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Huthifa Abu Jamous at his home in the village of Abu Dis, 10 kilometers (6 miles) east of Jerusalem, handcuffed him, and took him away, according to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA and the journalist’s father, Ali Dawod Jamous, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on June 4.

Jamous, who contributes to the Ramallah-based privately owned news agency Quds News Network and AlQastal News, is being held in administrative detention in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainee Affairs, the Beirut-based regional press freedom organization SKeyes, and his father.

Jamous’s father told CPJ that the Ofer military court placed Jamous in administrative detention for six months on November 14, the detention was extended by four months on April 16, and the decision was upheld on May 16.

The military prosecutor accused Jamous of incitement on social media, and of being a Hamas supporter who posed a security threat to the area, according to a copy of the military detention order reviewed by CPJ.

Jamous’s lawyer, Moataz Shqirat, rejected the prosecutor’s claims, and the journalist had never been convicted of any crime, according to legal documents reviewed by CPJ.

The judge said in the detention order that he had received a classified intelligence file that confirmed the need to place Jamous in administrative detention.

Jamous was previously arrested in 2018.

On September 5, Abu Jamous was released, he told CPJ via messaging app on October 2 and news footage showed.

STATUS: Released

Abdul Mohsen Shalaldeh

On November 6, 2023, Israeli security forces arrested Abdul Mohsen Shalaldeh, a cameraman for the local Palestinian news agency J-Media, at his home in the West Bank town of Sa’ir, 8 kilometers (5 miles) northeast of Hebron, seized his cell phone, handcuffed him, and took him away, according to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA and news reports.

According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainee Affairs, Shalaldeh was placed in administrative detention in Ofer Prison for six months on November 15.

Shalaldeh was previously arrested by Israeli security forces in February and June 2018, 2019, and 2020 and in January 2023. 

On May 6, Shalaldeh was released, according to news reports and social media posts by other journalists.

STATUS: Released

Somaya Jawabra

On November 5, 2023, Somaya Jawabra, a 30-year-old freelance journalist from Nablus in the northern West Bank, was arrested. She was summoned, along with her husband, journalist Tariq Al-Sarkaji, for an investigation at the Israeli police station in the Ari’el camp. While her husband was later released, Jawabra, who was seven months pregnant when she was arrested, remained in custody for another week.

Her arrest followed about two weeks of incitement against her by settlers in a Telegram group, according to her husband and London-based news website The New Arab, RT Arabic, and the Palestinian press freedom group MADA. The New Arab said settlers accused Jawabra of having Hamas ties and of inciting violence against Israel.

On November 12, Jawabra was released from prison under the condition of house arrest for an indefinite period, and bail of 10,000 shekels (US$2,588), and a third-party bail of 50,000 shekels (US$12,940). In addition, she was banned from using the internet, and her husband and mother-in-law were also put under house arrest according to The New Arab  and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

Jawabra gave birth to her son in January 2024 while under house arrest.

On October 2, 2024, Jawabra’s husband told CPJ via messaging app that his wife was still under house arrest and that an Israeli military court on May 12 postponed the next hearing until December.

STATUS: House arrest 

Nawaf al-Amer

On October 29, 2023, 62-year-old journalist Nawaf al-Amer of Sanad News Agency was arrested in a raid by Israeli soldiers on his house in Kafr Qallil town, near the West Bank city of Nablus, according to Nablus’ Shabab FM radio station and his son, Ibrahim al-Amer, who told CPJ that his father was not informed of any charges against him.

The Palestinian press freedom group MADA reported that al-Amer was arrested at 4 a.m., after his house was searched and his phone was confiscated. Al-Amer’s son and MADA said that the journalist suffers from health issues, including diabetes, and needs medical care.

Ibrahim Al-Amer told CPJ via messaging app on September 9 that Israeli authorities put his father in administrative detention in northern Israel’s Shita Prison for four months on October 30, and this had been extended for an additional four months, then a further two months, and another two months until the end of October 2024.

Al-Amer was previously arrested in 2011, when he was programs director at the pro-Hamas Al-Quds TV channel and spent 13 months in administrative detention.

Al-Amer was released on October 30, 2024.

STATUS: Released

Mohammad Badr

On October 28, 2023, journalist Mohammad Badr, a reporter and columnist for the Palestinian online website Al-Hadath, gave himself up to the IDF for detention, his wife Soujoud Al-Assi and the Al-Hadath editor-in-chief Rola Sarhan told CPJ.

Earlier that month, Israeli forces began to put pressure on Badr’s family to force him to surrender. The pressure began after Badr received a phone call from an Israeli military officer ordering him to return to custody after he had been released from a four-month detention earlier this year even though he had no outstanding charges, according to Palestinian press freedom group MADA. On October 22, Israeli military forces first arrested Badr’s father and two brothers, according to the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes and Assi, who spoke to CPJ.

Less than a week later, Israeli forces arrested Assi, also a journalist for Al-Hadath, from the couple’s home in Beit Liqya, southwest of Ramallah. During her arrest, Israeli soldiers searched and vandalized their house and seized electronic devices, according to the Palestinian press group MADA. Later that day, Badr turned himself in, Sarhan told CPJ. Assi, Badr’s father, and one of Badr’s brothers have since been released; a second brother is still in detention, Assi told CPJ.

On April 26, Israel’s Ofer military court extended Badr’s administrative detention for another four months, according to SKeyes and news reports.

Badr was released on August 26, according to news reports and Badr’s wife, Soujoud al-Assi, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app on September 24. Al-Assi told CPJ that Badr is in poor health and suffers from skin disease.  

STATUS: Released

Belal Arman

On October 27, 2023, Israel Defense Forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Belal Arman, who contributed to the recently-banned J-Media news agency, and he was placed in administrative detention for four months. IDF forces surrounded Arman’s home in the West Bank town of Kharbatha Bani Harith, west of Ramallah, asked him to produce identification and a cell phone, and then arrested him, according to the Palestinian press freedom organization MADA, the Beirut-based press regional freedom organization SKeyes, and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.

Arman’s cousin, Sameh Arman told CPJ that the family has received no information about the reason for his arrest and that on November 9 he was placed in administrative detention for four months.

Arman told CPJ via messaging app that he was released on May 24 after completing his administrative detention sentence.

STATUS: Released

Lama Khater

On October 26, 2023, Lama Khater, a freelance writer with Middle East Monitor and the Palestinian news website Felesteen and a political activist, was arrested by the IDF in the city of Hebron, West Bank, her husband Hazem Fakhoury told CPJ, and the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera and the Beirut-based press freedom group SKeyes reported.

Fakhoury said he did not know the reason for his wife’s arrest but that her lawyer had told him that Khater would be transferred to administrative detention—incarceration without charge, alleging that a person plans to commit an offense.

Khater was previously arrested in 2018 and detained for more than a year over her critical reporting, according to the Palestine Information Center and the Middle East Monitor.

On November 8, Khater’s husband told CPJ via messaging app that soldiers in her cell threatened her with rape and burning of her children. Her lawyer, Hassan Abbadi, who visited her in prison, also wrote about these details on his Facebook page, which was also reported by Al Jazeera. The lawyer told CPJ via phone call that Khater was strip searched, and threatened to be “deported to Gaza.”

Khater was released in a prisoner exchange in November 2023.

STATUS: Released

Radwan Qatanani

On October 25, 2023, Israeli military forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Radwan Qatanani, who covers issues related to Israel’s military occupation for several Palestinian news websites, including Etar, Arabi 21, Hadarat, and the Quds News Network.

He was later placed in administrative detention for six months. Israeli military forces searched Qatanani’s home in the Askar refugee camp, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, in the early morning. When they failed to find the journalist there, they called him and asked him to come home. Qatanani returned to the house and was arrested, Qatanani’s brother, Ali Qatanani, told Palestinian press freedom group MADA. Beirut-based regional press freedom organization SKeyes and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate also reported on the arrest.

On October 16, 2024, Ali Qatanani, Radwan’s brother, told CPJ via messaging app that Israeli forces are currently holding Radwan in Ramon prison in southern Israel and that his family has no further information about him or his health behind bars. CPJ could not immediately determine when he was moved from Megiddo prison, in northern Israel.

On October 25, 2024, Ali Qatanani told CPJ via messaging app that an Israeli military court extended Radwan’s administrative detention for three more months.

In response to CPJ’s email requesting comment on Qatanani’s detention, an IDF spokesperson requested further details on his case.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Thaer Fakhoury

On October 20, 2023, Israeli military forces arrested Palestinian journalist and producer Thaer Fakhoury. He is being held in administrative detention for six months.

Fakhoury is the director of the media production company Space Media, which provides video production services, including to the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera. He also provides live footage of events in the West Bank on his Facebook account, which has 74,000 followers, and works as a graphic designer and caricaturist.

Israeli military forces surrounded Fakhoury´s home in southern Hebron and raided it, according to news reports and a report by the Palestinian press freedom group MADA. Fakhoury´s father told MADA that the journalist and his brother were held in a room and questioned while soldiers searched the house. Soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed Fakhoury, seized his cell phone and his car keys, and took him away in a military jeep parked near his house. A relative who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity said the family believed the arrest was related to Fakhoury’s social media posts.

Fakhoury was released on June 13, 2024, according to a news report by the Palestinian news website Nabd and Instagram posts by Palestinian journalists and news outlets.

STATUS: Released

Musaab Qafesha

On October 20, 2023, Israeli military forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist Musaab Qafesha after they surrounded his home in the West Bank’s southern city of Hebron and urged Qafesha and his brother to come out. As soon as they complied, the brothers were handcuffed, taken to military jeeps, and driven to an unknown destination, according to Palestinian press freedom group MADA, citing another brother, and news reports.

Qafesha reports for broadcasters and news agencies including Egypt’s Al-Watan TV, Iraq’s Al-Rafidiain TV, Al-Watan News Agency, and the Ramallah-based privately owned news agency Quds News Network. Qafesha also used to work for the monitoring and documentation team of the Palestinian digital rights group Sada Social.

On October 26, Qafesha was placed in administrative detention for six months, according to Facebook posts by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs.

Qafesha´s father, Khamis Abdulkader Qafesha, told CPJ that he believed his son may have been arrested because of his activity on social media, though he could not identify anything specific that might have drawn scrutiny.

Qafesha’s brother, Saif Qafesha, told CPJ via messaging app on September 24, 2024, that his brother’s administrative detention was extended by a further six months and that he is being held in southern Israel’s Nafha Prison. He said that his brother had lost 77 pounds in jail but his lawyer, Ashraf Abu Snineh, said he was in good health after a recent prison visit.

Qafesha was released on October 16, 2024. 

STATUS: Released

Alaa al-Rimawi

On October 19, 2023, Palestinian journalist Alaa al-Rimawi, director of the Israeli-banned J-Media agency, was arrested after turning himself in at the West Bank’s Ofer Prison following a raid by Israeli military forces on his home in Ramallah while he was undergoing medical examinations at a hospital, arrested his son, and notified his family that he had to surrender himself to Israeli custody, according to Palestinian press freedom organization MADA, the Lebanese regional press freedom group SKeyes, and a video al-Rimawi posted on TikTok from the hospital.

On October 16, three days prior to al-Rimawi’s arrest, the IDF ordered J-Media to shut down.

On November 20, al-Rimawi’s wife Maymona Hussam Eldin, told CPJ by phone that her husband had been placed in administrative detention for six months, but did not know the exact date the detention began. Al-Rimawi’s family told CPJ that they believe he is being held over his social media posts, although they did not specify which ones.

On September 23, 2024, al-Rimawi’s wife told CPJ that her husband’s detention had been extended for a further six months on May 7 because authorities said he “poses a threat to the security in the area.” According to the court order, reviewed by CPJ, al-Rimawi’s current administrative detention will expire on October 17.

Eldin also told CPJ that her husband had been assaulted by prison guards at least 18 times, resulting in broken ribs.  

Eldin told CPJ October 17 that Israeli authorities had extended al-Rimawi’s detention for an additional six months, and that his lawyers were informed two days prior. Local news website Hurriya News also reported on the extension.  

CPJ’s email to the IDF requesting comment on al-Rimawi’s administrative detention and alleged abuse did not immediately receive a response.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Imad Abu Awad

On October 19, 2023, Palestinian journalist and political commentator Imad Abu Awad was arrested by Israeli forces in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Abu Awad provides commentary to international and regional broadcasters including the Qatari-funded broadcaster Al Jazeera, Al-Ghad and Al-Qahera News. He also shares video clips of his TV appearances and comments on his Facebook account, which has over 3,800 followers. A former program producer for pro-Hamas Al-Quds TV, he directs the Al-Quds Center for Palestinian and Israeli Studies think tank and the U-Smart Center for Training, a training center for Palestinians, in Ramallah.

Israeli forces arrested Abu Awad at his office at U-Smart Centre for Training, searched the premises, according to news reports and the Palestinian press freedom group MADA. They seized his cell phone and laptop.

Ten days after Abu Awad’s arrest, he was placed in administrative detention for six months and transferred to southern Israel’s Nafha Prison, his brother told CPJ, adding that the family had spoken to him in prison and he was in good health.

Abu Awad was released on July 17, after nine months in jail.

STATUS: Released

Abdel Nasser al-Laham

On October 16, 2023, Israel Defense Forces arrested Palestinian journalist Abdel Nasser al-Laham, a photographer covering local news for Ma’an News Agency. He is being held without charge at Ofer Prison.

IDF forces broke down the door to al-Laham’s home in the Dheisheh refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, at 6:30 a.m., pointed their guns at the journalist, tied his hands behind his back, and blindfolded him, al-Laham’s father, Mohammad al-Laham told Ma’an, which published a video of soldiers leading the journalist away. Al-Laham´s father told CPJ that his son was questioned about activities during his time at university, though was unable to specify what.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Moath Amarneh

On October 16, 2023, Israel Defense Forces arrested Palestinian journalist Moath Amarneh, a photographer and cameraman for the West Bank-based J-Media agency, the same day that Israel banned J-Media on security grounds. Amarneh, who lost his left eye to an Israeli rubber bullet while covering protests in 2019, was placed in administrative detention for six months on October 29 in Megiddo Prison and, according to news reports and MADA, beaten by prison officers. According to the Palestinian press freedom group MADA and news reports, on October 16, 12 Israeli soldiers stormed into Amarneh´s home in the Dheisheh refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, and handcuffed him. One of the soldiers forced Amarneh to speak to an officer over the phone, who asked Amarneh about the nature of his work. When he said that he was a journalist, the officer informed him that he was under arrest for incitement.  He was provided access to a lawyer, who has been able to visit him in prison, according to news reports. Amarneh still suffers severe health conditions and is in need of medicines that weren’t allowed in according to emails from his relatives CPJ received.

Amarneh was released on July 9, 2024. 

STATUS: Released

Mustafa al-Khawaja

On October 16, 2023, Israel Defense Forces arrested Palestinian journalist Mustafa al-Khawaja, a reporter for the West Bank-based J-Media agency and the Hamas-funded channel Al-Aqsa TV. He was later placed in administrative detention for six months. On the day of his arrest, Israel banned J-Media on security grounds; Al-Aqsa TV has been banned for several years.

Around 20 soldiers broke through the gate of al-Khawaja’s home in Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, at around 3 a.m., according to Palestinian press freedom group MADA, citing an interview with al-Khawaja’s brother, Hamada al-Khawaja, and news reports. Soldiers asked for al-Khawaja’s identification, handcuffed him, seized his mobile phone, and drove him to an unknown destination.

He was placed under administrative detention for six months on October 26, news reports said. Al-Khawaja has been given access to a lawyer, but his lawyer told CPJ on November 20 that visits to prisoners were not allowed. Al-Khawaja’s lawyer believes he is now held in Megiddo Prison, in northern Israel, but was unable to confirm this.

Al-Khawaja’s family believe he was arrested because of his social media commentary on the Israel-Gaza war.

Al-Khawaja was released on August 14, after completing his administrative detention sentence.

STATUS: Released

Sabri Jibril

On October 15, 2023, Israel Defense Forces arrested Palestinian journalist Sabri Jibril, a reporter for the West Bank-based J-Media agency, and later placed him in administrative detention. The day after his arrest, Israel banned J-Media on security grounds.

Jibril’s brother, who asked not to be named for safety reasons, told CPJ he believed that the journalist was arrested for his social media commentary on the Israel-Gaza war, though did not specify.

According to an October 26 Facebook post by the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs and Jibril’s brother, the journalist was placed in administrative detention in northern Israel’s Megiddo Prison for six months.

On September 23, 2024, Jibril’s brother told CPJ via messaging app that the journalist was now in southern Israel’s Ramon Prison and that his administrative detention had been extended for another six months, although he could not provide the exact date when the order was made. He said he was due to be released in mid-October.

He added that Jibril’s family had not been allowed to visit him and had no information about his health condition.

STATUS: Currently imprisoned

Editor’s note: This list has been updated on November 11, 2024, to reflect the correct statuses of Ashwaq Muhammad Ayad and Musaab Qafesha, and the source of information for Alaa Sarraj’s imprisonment.

Editor’s note: Fathi Atkidik, who appeared on the list of arrested earlier, is a former journalist whose arrest may not be related to his previous journalistic work. CPJ has removed his name from the list while we continue to investigate circumstances surrounding his arrest. The name of the wife of journalist Amer Abu Arafa has been corrected to Safa Hroub. This text has been updated to add detail about the funding of Al-Aqsa TV channel.

More on journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza conflict

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