Palestinian freelance journalist Abdul Mohsen Shalaldeh, 33, was arrested on November 7, 2023, at his home in the town of Sa'ir in Hebron, southern West Bank. He previously collaborated with Al Jazeera Mubasher and West Bank-based J-Media agency, which the Israeli army ordered to shut on October 16.
Shalaldeh was held in several facilities, beginning in the West Bank’s Etzion detention center and later Ofer Prison. He told CPJ that Israeli soldiers beat him, stabbed his scalp with pens, and extinguished cigarettes on his head. He said he could not move for days due to what he believes were fractured bones in several parts of his body but he received no medical treatment.
Shalaldeh said that he discovered in an appeal hearing, after five months’ detention, that he had been placed under administrative detention and accused of filming the Israeli army as part of his journalistic work.
Israel’s practice of administrative detention allows a military commander to detain an individual without charge, typically for six months, on the grounds of preventing them from committing a future offense. Administrative detention can be extended an unlimited number of times.
Before his release, Israeli prison officials threatened Shalaldeh with re-arrest, he told CPJ.
He lost 19 kilograms due to what he described as Israeli “starvation policies” inside prisons, dropping to a weight of 50 kilograms.
On May 6, 2024, Israeli authorities released Shalaldeh, after detaining him for six months.
Shalaldeh told CPJ on August 3, 2025, that he had been traumatized by his experience in detention and now only works intermittently.
Shalaldeh was previously arrested by Israeli security forces in February and June 2018, 2019, and 2020 and in January 2023.
CPJ routinely contacts the Israel Defense Forces' North America Media Desk about its arrests of journalists. In one 2024 response the IDF said it detains ‘individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity,' but has either provided no evidence or unsubstantiated evidence to CPJ to support these suspicions. CPJ has also contacted the Israeli Prison Service, the Palestinian General Intelligence Service, and Shin Bet about Palestinian journalists arrested in the West Bank but did not receive any replies.