On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces launched an offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians, including Khalil Odeh, a photographer for the local Gaza-based news agency Sabq 24. Odeh and his family had sought refuge near the hospital after their home in Gaza City’s Al-Nasr neighborhood was bombed, Odeh’s grandmother Malak Abu Odeh and Sabq 24’s editor-in-chief Mohammad Jarbou told CPJ. Other journalists were also arrested in the raid.
“While he was at Al-Shifa and prior to his arrest, he was filming videos and taking pictures for Sabq 24 from inside the hospital and other locations in Gaza,” Jarbou said.
“Nearly a month after his arrest, some prisoners who had been released told us that he had been imprisoned with them in Ofer prison and was in good health. But we have heard nothing else about him since then,” Odeh’s grandmother said, adding that the family had no information about the reason for the journalist’s arrest.
CPJ was unable to determine if the journalist is facing charges.
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 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.