Israeli police arrested Haneen Qawareeq, a 24-year-old reporter for the Ramallah-based Sada News Agency, while she was travelling by car on May 7, 2025, to the West Bank city of Nablus to work on a report at An-Najah National University. She was released on May 15.
Alaa Abu Al-Saud, a freelance photographer working with Sada News, told CPJ that he was driving the car.
“The charge against Haneen [was] ‘incitement on social media’ — a charge that is commonly leveled against individuals in the West Bank, even for actions as simple as congratulating a prisoner upon release from Israeli prisons,” Sada News Agency’s editor-in-chief, Musab Jaber, told CPJ.
Jaber said Qawareeq had been transferred to Damon prison, near the northern Israeli city of Haifa. On May 13, an Israeli court extended Qawareeq’s detention until May 15, her sister, Sahar Qawareeq, told CPJ.
“There are no formal charges filed against Haneen, but she is being questioned over allegations of incitement through her journalistic reports, which highlight Israeli occupation violations in the West Bank,” Sahar Qawareeq told CPJ.
Police accused her of incitement for her social media posts and articles, but did not specify which specific posts or articles they considered incitement. Police released her because they did not have evidence to charge her, Qawareeq told CPJ.