Israeli soldiers arrested Samer Khuwaira, a 45-year-old radio presenter at Hawa Nablus Radio and father of four, and a correspondent for the Qatari-funded pan-Arab newspaper Al Araby Al Jadeed and contributor to other outlets, in the West Bank city of Nablus on April 10, 2025. Video footage showed Khuwaira being taken from his home at night by about a dozen armed soldiers.
His wife, Iman Amer, told Al Araby Al Jadeed that the soldiers first raided their neighbor’s house and beat him, before realizing it was the wrong person and coming to their house.
“When they made sure Samer was a journalist, they handcuffed and blindfolded him, and arrested him,” she told CPJ.
Khuwaira was sent to administrative detention for three months on April 23, according to his wife and Al Araby Al Jadeed.
On July 8, Khuwaira’s administrative detention was extended for another three months, his wife told CPJ, after speaking with the Palestinian Prisoners Club, a non-governmental organization that supports inmates in Israeli jails.
“We know nothing about him other than that he is being held in Nafha Prison [in southern Israel],” she said.
Iman Amer said that she was told by an ex-prisoner, who was with her husband at an interrogation center in the northern West Bank town of Huwara, that an Israeli security officer “informed Samer that he would not be released because he poses a threat to Israeli security.”
“However, there are no specific charges against him, and his administrative detention will continue,” she added.
Israeli authorities released Samer Khuweira on Wednesday, January 7, 2026, after holding him for nine months following his arrest.
Upon his release, Khuweira told that Israeli forces raided his home at 3:00 a.m. on April 10, 2025, and transferred him to the Howara interrogation center for 25 days, then to Megiddo Prison for 22 days, and later to Ganot Prison, where he spent about seven months.
He alleged torture in Israeli detention centres. Khuweira said that he was beaten by Israeli soldiers, particularly on his chest, sprayed with an unknown gas, and subjected to starvation, losing 22 kilograms. He also contracted scabies and boils due to poor prison hygiene.
Khuweira added that he appeared six times before Israeli courts via video conference to uphold administrative detention orders, and that shortly before his release, an Israeli intelligence officer indirectly threatened him with re-arrest if he repeated what the officer described as his “mistakes.”
CPJ’s email to the IDF International Press Desk for comment on Khuwaira’s detention received a reply requesting the ID number of the journalist, which CPJ does not collect. It further received this reply: “Some of the claims in the query were presented without sufficient details regarding detainees’ identity, making it impossible to review them.”