On July 2, 2025, Israeli warplanes killed Mohammed Imad al-Sultan, 29, an editor and proofreader reviewer at the pro-Hamas Felesteen (Palestine) newspaper, along with several members of his family — just four months after he was released from Israeli detention. He was killed when an Israeli airstrike struck the apartment his family had rented in western Gaza City after their home in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, was destroyed.
Al-Sultan’s wife, Lubna Marwan al-Sultan, told CPJ: “We fled with my family and Mohammed’s family to an apartment we rented in the port area of western Gaza City, at around 1:15 p.m., Israeli warplanes fired a missile at the room where Mohammed, my father Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, and several relatives were sitting.”
She added: “Nine members of both families were killed instantly, including my parents. Mohammed didn’t die immediately — he was taken to Al-Quds Hospital in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in western Gaza City, but he succumbed to his injuries at around 5:30 p.m.”
Lubna said Al-Sultan had hoped, after his release from Israeli detention on February 27, 2025 — following more than a year in prison — to “shed light on the suffering of the prisoners he left behind and to highlight the hardships people in Gaza are enduring due to the war.”
Al-Sultan had been arrested by Israeli forces on December 24, 2023, in Jabalia, northern Gaza, after fleeing to a school as soldiers demolished his home. He told CPJ after his release that troops separated the men from the women, detained him, and “beat and insulted me the entire way” as he was taken to a barracks across the border. Al-Sultan said he was blindfolded, handcuffed, and interrogated under accusations of belonging to Hamas, adding, “For eight days, the soldiers severely beat me. The doctor even assaulted me when I was brought before him.” He said he spent 40 days there before being transferred to Ktzi’ot Prison in southern Israel’s Negev desert, which he described as “more like hell.”
Al-Sultan said that after his release, he continued to face abuse in prison, including severe beatings that left him nearly blind in one eye and the denial of medical treatment. An Israeli judge later accused him of being an unlawful combatant during a video hearing to extend his detention. He was released on February 27, 2025, in a prisoner-hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas. After his release, he told CPJ his weight had dropped from 75 (165 pounds) to 55 kilograms (121 pounds), “as a result of the malnutrition to which all prisoners are subjected.”
Al-Sultan was among the journalists whose testimony was included in the CPJ special report “We returned from hell,” published in February 2026, which compiles accounts from 58 journalists who reported patterns of abuse, torture, and mistreatment against Palestinian journalists inside Israeli prisons.
The Israeli military did not respond to CPJ’s repeated requests for comment on specific allegations by journalists in the report, instead requesting ID numbers and geographic coordinates that CPJ does not collect or provide. When asked about allegations of physical and sexual abuse, starvation, and the investigation and accountability process, an army spokesperson said “individuals detained are treated in accordance with international law,” adding that the armed forces “have never, and will never, deliberately target journalists,” and that any violations of protocol “will be looked into.”
CPJ also emailed the Israel Prison Service (IPS) regarding the allegations in the report. In response, the IPS said “all prisoners are detained according to the law” and that “all basic rights are fully upheld by professionally trained prison guards.” The service said it was unaware of the claims described, and that to its knowledge “no such events have occurred,” but noted that “prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”
CPJ had previously emailed the Israel Defense Forces’ North America Media Desk seeking comment on al-Sultan’s killing, but no response was received.