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 Ahmed Abdel Aal of the pro-Hamas Shehab News Agency as well as his brother Khader Abdel Aal of the local newspaper Felesteen Palestine, according to the Beirut-based regional press freedom group SKeyes. Other journalists were also arrested in the raid.
“The Israeli security forces arrested Khader Abdel Aal and his brother 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 [inside Israel] on August 4,” Majida Karajah, a lawyer with the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer told CPJ via messaging app.
CPJ has not been able to determine the status of Ahmed Abdel Aal’s health in custody.
Alaa Skafi, director of Addameer, told CPJ that journalists from Gaza are generally held under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law. According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, the law allows Israel to hold detainees for long periods of time without charge and with limited access to legal counsel. Skafi and B’Tselem both described overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and abuse at Israeli prison facilities housing Palestinian journalists.
Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, which began after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, have devastated the local press. Israel has killed scores of journalists in Gaza as well as six in Lebanon, jailed dozens of Palestinian journalists from Gaza and the West Bank, and destroyed much of the press infrastructure in Gaza, all while preventing the foreign press from entering Gaza.
CPJ emailed the Israel Defense Forces, Israel’s Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet, and the Israeli Prison Service in late 2024 for comment on the cases of imprisoned Palestinian journalists but received no response.