After eight months of detention, 37-year-old Palestinian photojournalist Moath Amarneh was released on April 9, 2026.
He was urgently taken to the Istishari Hospital in Ramallah following a severe eye infection he developed in custody, leading him to lose his implanted eye.
His wife, Wafaa, told CPJ that her husband lost at least 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of weight while in custody.
In a video, Amarneh spoke about beatings, medical neglect, exposure to cold for long hours, and being denied bedding while in Ofer prison. These experiences are consistent with a broader pattern documented by CPJ.
Amarneh, who works for Turkish state-owned TRT Arabic and Russia Today English, was arrested on August 20, 2025, by Israeli police while he traveling with his wife from Bethlehem to Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
A white Toyota intercepted Amarneh’s car, his cousin, journalist Ossayd Amarneh, told CPJ.
“Three men wearing civilian clothes and caps labeled ‘police’ got out and asked Moath to exit the vehicle and show his ID,” the cousin said, adding that the men arrested Amarneh, confiscated his phone, and took him to an unknown location.
The cousin said a lawyer visiting another Palestinian detainee at Israel’s Ofer Prison on August 21 learned that Amarneh was being held in Section 17 of the facility.
On August 28, Israeli authorities placed Amarneh under four months of administrative detention, Amani Sarahneh, the head of documentation at the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told CPJ.
An Israeli military spokesperson told CPJ via messaging app on August 31 that Amarneh had been placed in administrative detention due to alleged “security-related activity that posed a threat to the region.”
Sarahneh said the journalist, who lost his left eye in 2019 after being struck by an Israeli rubber bullet, experienced chronic pain from shrapnel lodged in his head.
Amarneh, a father of three, was previously arrested on October 16, 2023, the day that Israel shut down his former employer, J-Media, on security grounds. He was held without charge under administrative detention in northern Israel’s Megiddo Prison for nearly nine months. During that time, Amarneh’s lawyer, who was not named, told news outlets that the journalist had been beaten by prison officers, denied medical treatment for chronic headaches and diabetes, and forced to sleep on the floor of an overcrowded cell. He was releasedon July 9, 2024.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention subsequently found that Amarneh’s detention was arbitrary and unlawful.
CPJ requested comment from the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) Press Desk on the allegations of mistreatment and medical neglect experienced by Amarneh, but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.