Sami al-Sai, a freelance reporter for the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera Mubasher and the local broadcaster Al-Fajer TV, was held in administrative detention in Ramon prison in southern Israel, 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 Al Jazeera. Twenty Israeli soldiers raided and vandalized his home, handcuffed Al-Sai and his brother, Osama, with plastic ties and took the journalist to an unknown destination without informing him of the reason for his arrest.
Al-Sai was held in administrative detention, which his wife Amani Al-Sai told CPJ has been renewed several times. Under administrative detention procedures, authorities may hold detainees for six months without charge if they suspect the detainee of planning to commit a future offense, and then extend the detention an unlimited number of times, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Judges may accept evidence against the detainee without disclosing it on security grounds.
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.” CPJ was unable to determine if he was officially charged. During his 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 deemed Al-Sai was 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.
On June 10, 2025, Israeli authorities released Al-Sai after 16 months of administrative arbitrary detention. In an interview with CPJ, he said that he had lost 27 kilograms as a result of what he calls deliberate starvation policies in Israeli prisons. He also reported being threatened with rearrest if he was to reach out to media outlets and talk about the conditions of his imprisonment.
During a public event organized by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) and Filastiniyat held in December 2025, and in an Al-Jazeera interview, Sami al-Sai alleged that while held in Megiddo Prison, Israeli prison guards beat, blindfolded, shackled, humiliated, sexually assaulted him and raped him using a baton. Al-Sai described experiencing extreme physical pain and repeated assaults on sensitive areas of his body, including the site of a kidney donation surgery he had undergone before his arrest. He also reported death threats directed at him and other journalists, alongside systematic medical neglect despite his serious health condition.
CPJ emailed the Israeli prison service for comments but did not receive an immediate response.