Israeli forces arrested 39-year-old Palestinian Bahaaeldin El Ghoul, a freelance researcher and writer for several outlets, including Sadeel Media, at a military checkpoint on central Gaza’s Netzarim corridor on November 16, 2023, as he was fleeing south, the journalist told CPJ after his release.
“There were no dialysis machines left in Gaza City due to the occupation forces’ siege of hospitals, especially the Al-Shifa Medical Complex. I was forced to carry my elderly father, who needed dialysis several times a week, and flee with him,” El Ghoul told CPJ in March 2025.
“Israeli occupation soldiers…interrogated me in the field about my journalistic work, before transferring me…to the ‘disco center’ for interrogation for four days, under very loud music,” he said.
In a January 29, 2025, report, the Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer interviewed ex-detainees who described “disco rooms” inside detention centers — a form of psychological torture that has been used for decades, from the Nazis to U.S. interrogators in Guantanamo Bay.
El Ghoul said he was then transferred to southern Israel’s Sde Teiman detention center and Ktzi’ot Prison, from where he was released.
El Ghoul said he was brought before a judge via video conference and charged with “being an unlawful combatant and posing a danger to the State of Israel.”
El Ghoul did not appear in CPJ's 2024 prison census, nor in the 2023 prison census, because CPJ was not aware of his case until his release.
El Ghoul was released on February 27, 2025, in a prisoner hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas. He said he had lost about 20 kilograms (44 pounds) due to food shortages.
“My father died 13 days after my arrest,” he told CPJ.