On June 2, 2024, Israeli security forces detained Rasha Hirzallah, a reporter for the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA, after she was summoned for questioning to the police station at Ariel, an Israeli settlement about 17 miles south of the West Bank city of Nablus, according to news reports and Hirzallah’s brother Osama Hirzallah, who spoke to CPJ. Hirzallah was released on December 1, after completing the six-month sentence.
On her social media accounts on X and Instagram, Hirzallah prominently features her brother Mohammed Hirzallah, who died in November 2022 after being shot in the head during clashes with Israeli security forces in July that year.
On November 17, an Israeli military court sentenced Hirzallah to six months in prison for incitement on social media and fined her 5,000 shekels (US$1,390).
According to WAFA, the journalist was held in Damon Prison in northern Israel.
Hirzallah told CPJ that she was subjected to extensive abuse while in detention. "Almost all male and female prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons are subjected to torture, whether physical — such as beatings, stress positions, yelling, and threats—or psychological. I was one of them," she said. "I was beaten, treated harshly and with humiliation, insulted with obscene language, and threatened — along with my family. I was subjected to humiliating strip searches and told that if I refused, a male suppression unit would forcibly search me. I was shackled, beaten during prison raids, deprived of showers for more than eight days at a time, and denied access to the prison yard for daily exercise."
Hirzallah reported losing 28 kilograms (62 pounds) in prison. "The food lacked meat and fruits. We were given rotten vegetables and expired cans of hummus. I even found bugs in my soup, removed them, and drank it anyway because there was no alternative. Due to the extremely limited food portions, I fasted continuously for five consecutive months, just like in the month of Ramadan, to gather enough food for a full meal at the end of each day,” she said.
Upon her release, Israeli authorities warned Hirzallah not to speak to the media or publish anything they would consider "incitement," threatening to re-arrest her if she did so, according to her account.
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.
Hirzallah 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 previously emailed the Israel Defense Forces, Israel’s Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet, and the IPS in late 2024 for comment on the cases of imprisoned Palestinian journalists but received no response.