On March 18, 2024, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an offensive on the Al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza, arresting scores of Palestinians, including Mohamad Arab, a freelance journalist with Al-Araby TV, according to multiple news reports. Other journalists were also arrested in the raid.
On June 19, lawyer Khaled Mahajneh told Al-Araby TV, which Arab freelanced for before his arrest, that the journalist was being held at the Israeli detention facility Sde Teiman, which multiple media outlets and journalists have said is a facility where Palestinian detainees are sometimes brutally mistreated. The lawyer, who saw the journalist at Sde Teiman, said that Arab did not know his location for 100 days after his arrest, until the lawyer informed Arab.
The lawyer also relayed Arab’s testimony that said, “We face mistreatment and torture all day, including sexual harassment and rape. The beatings and insults never stop.” Arab, in the testimony that was published by media outlets, added that all the detainees, including him, were surrounded by police dogs all the time. His health has deteriorated in prison.
Arab, 42, also told Mahajneh that the food quality was very poor and in small quantities, adding that “every four detainees can use the toilets for a total of a minute and are allowed to shower for one minute a week.”
Mahajneh told CPJ via messaging app that “Arab was questioned after 40 days of his arrest from Al Shifa hospital, where he reiterated that he’s a journalist working with multiple outlets and was accused by soldiers and investigators of acting as a messenger of information for Hamas. The lawyer said Arab was not treated as a journalist, even after he told investigators that he was arrested while doing his job at Al-Shifa hospital. Mahajneh added that Arab was asked where Hamas stores its weapons, which he responded to by saying, “I don’t know. I’m a journalist and I was arrested while doing journalism.”
CPJ was unable to determine whether the journalist faces 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 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.