On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a new offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex, arresting scores of Palestinians. Mahmoud Elewa, a freelance correspondent for Qatari-funded Al Jazeera TV, was among those held, according to multiple news reports. Other journalists were also arrested in the raid.
Elewa was among the first to report on the hospital raid and the arrest of Al Jazeera reporter Ismail Al Ghoul on March 18. Al Ghoul was released after about 12 hours in Israeli custody. Al Ghoul was killed on July 31, 2024.
Elewa’s mother, Rida Al-Sharqawi, told CPJ via messaging app on September 5 that she did not know her son’s whereabouts until the daughter of a prisoner who was released in mid-July told her that Elewa was in Ofer prison in the West Bank. He was in good health but had not seen a lawyer, Al-Sharqawi said.
The Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer told CPJ that Israeli authorities denied their request to visit Elewa at Ofer prison on October 21. CPJ could not determine whether the journalist is facing any charges.
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 IDF, 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.