Palestinian journalist Imad Ifranji, manager of the Gaza bureau of the Jerusalem-based Al-Quds newspaper, was found to be in Israeli custody after he went missing during Israel’s attack on Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital on March 19, 2024, according to news reports and Ifranji’s son, Musaab Ifranji, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app in June.
According to Musaab Ifranji, for several hours after the attack the Ifranji family knew nothing about the fate of his father or of any of the journalists who were at Al-Shifa until his father called from the hospital. On March 20, his sister texted Musaab Ifranji that Israeli troops were raiding their home; Musaab Ifranji said Israeli security forces occupied the home for several hours, interrogated and mistreated his brothers and sisters, used his younger brothers as human shields as Israeli troops were withdrawing, ordered the family to leave for the southern Gazan city of Rafah, and burned the house to the ground.
On April 15, after nearly a month without any news about his father, Musaab Ifranji received a call from a released Palestinian prisoner, who didn’t identify himself, saying that Musaab Ifranji’s father was in Israeli custody.
About a month later, Musaab Ifranji found a picture, published on Twitter by the Israeli-funded Arabic language bulletin Al-Waka, showing his father among other detainees. The caption described them as Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who had been arrested at Al-Shifa hospital.
In November 2024 Musaab Ifranji old CPJ that his father had been held at Ofer prison, in the Israeli occupied West Bank, since August 2024 and was suffering from pain in his hand, foot, and neck as a result of mistreatment in custody.
Alaa Skafi, director of Palestinian prisoner support group 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 the region, 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.
Ifranji was previously director of the Gaza office of Al-Quds TV and has worked for a variety of Palestinian media outlets, including the news websites PalTimes and Felesteen. Mohamed Abo Khdair, editor-in-chief of the Al-Quds newspaper, told CPJ that Ifranji used to work as a reporter for the newspaper, before becoming manager of Al-Quds’ Gaza bureau.
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.