On August 30, 2024, Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian freelance journalist and photographer Ramez Awad at his home in the Palestinian village of Jifna, five miles north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate and Amani Sarahneh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoners Club, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.
Awad's cousin, Amjad Awad, told Beirut-based regional press freedom organization SKeyes that Israeli soldiers broke into Awad’s family home in Jifna, checked his ID card and took him away without informing the family of the charges against him or where they were taking him.
Awad’s brother, Rani Awad, told CPJ via messaging app that Awad is held in Ofer prison, in the West Bank, and that he has been charged with incitement. He said that the journalist’s court hearings had been delayed. CPJ was unable to determine the status of Awad’s health in custody.
A court document that CPJ reviewed included a request from the court to allow a medical check for Awad; the document said that “the court asked the prison authorities to allow Ramez to obtain some clothes and blankets.”
On December 18, 2023, an Israeli soldier shot Awad, injuring his thigh, while he was covering Israeli military operations, according to news reports and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate.
Awad was injured and later arrested in the course of Israel’s recent military operations in the region, which began after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. Israel has killed scores of journalists in Gaza as well as six in Lebanon, jailed dozens of Palestinian journalists from the West Bank and Gaza, and destroyed much of the press infrastructure in Gaza, all while preventing the foreign press from entering Gaza.
CPJ emailed the Israel Defense Forces, 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.