Palestinian freelance photojournalist and reporter Moath Amarneh was arrested on September 10, 2026, when Israeli forces raided his home in Dheisheh refugee camp, south of Bethlehem, according to his wife Wafaa Amarneh. On September 14, his family was informed that Amarneh was being held in Ofer Prison, in the occupied West Bank. The reason for his detention remains unknown.
Amarneh, who contributes to Turkish state-owned TRT Arabic and Russia Today English, was previously arrested on August 20, 2025, by Israeli police while traveling with his wife from Bethlehem to Hebron. He was kept under consecutive administrative detention. An Israeli military spokesperson told CPJ via a messaging app on August 31, 2025, that Amarneh had been placed in administrative detention due to alleged “security-related activity that posed a threat to the region.”
Amani Sarahneh, the head of documentation at the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told CPJ that 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 was released after eight months on April 9, 2026, and was urgently taken to the Istishari Hospital in Ramallah due to a severe eye infection he developed in custody that led to the loss of his prosthetic eye.
His wife told CPJ that her husband lost at least 20 kilograms (44 pounds) while in custody.
In a video, Amarneh recounted beatings, medical neglect, exposure to cold temperatures for long hours, and being denied bedding while in Ofer prison. These experiences are consistent with a broader pattern documented by CPJ.
Amarneh, a father of three, was also previously arrested on October 16, 2023, the day that Israel shut down his former employer, J-Media, on security grounds. He was held without charges under administrative detention in northern Israel’s Megiddo Prison for nearly nine months. The journalist was 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 released on July 9, 2024.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention subsequently found that Amarneh’s detention was arbitrary and unlawful.
In April 2026, CPJ requested comment from the Israel Defense Forces press desk regarding the allegations of mistreatment and medical neglect experienced by Amarneh during his second arrest but did not receive a response at the time of publishing.
In September 2026, the Israeli army answered CPJ’s inquiries regarding Amarneh's current detention. They claimed he was a Hamas operative plotting an “attack against Israeli civilians,” though no evidence was presented to support the assertion.