Sami Al-Sai, a freelance reporter for the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera Mubasher and the local broadcaster Al-Fajer TV, is currently being held in administrative detention in Ramon prison in southern Israel, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainee Affairs and a copy of the administrative detention order, which CPJ has reviewed.
On February 23, 2024, Israeli troops arrested Al-Sai at his home in Tulkarem’s Artah neighborhood, according to news reports, the Palestinian press freedom organization MADA, and a video of his arrest posted by Al Jazeera. Twenty Israeli soldiers raided and vandalized the the home, handcuffed Al-Sai and his brother Osama with plastic bands and took the journalist to an unknown destination without informing him of the reason for his arrest.
Al-Sai is held in administrative detention, which his wife Amani Al-Sai told CPJ has been renewed several times. Under administrative detention procedures, authorities may hold detainees for six months without charge if they suspect the detainee of planning to commit a future offense, and then extend the detention an unlimited number of times, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Judges may accept evidence against the detainee without disclosing it on security grounds.
The administrative detention order says that the prosecutor accused Al-Sai of being “a member of Hamas and acting to undermine the security of the state and the judge agreed that these reasons were enough to keep him in detention.” CPJ was unable to determine if he was officially charged. The defense lawyer demanded that Al-Sai be released for medical reasons, because he donated a kidney to his son and needs medication, but the judge overruled this objection and said that the doctor at the jail said that Al-Sai is healthy enough to remain in prison.
Al-Sai was 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.
Prior to his arrest, Al-Sai had been covering Israeli military operations in the city of Tulkarem, especially in the Nour Shams refugee camp, for the Jordanian broadcaster Al-Haqeqa al-Dawliya, the Tulkarem-based broadcaster Fajer TV, the radio station Shabab FM, and Al Jazeera Mubasher.
Al-Sai is also the founder and director of the news website Karmul, which provides news about the city of Tulkarem. Al-Sai extensively covered the destruction caused by Israeli military operations in the Nour Shams refugee camp.
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.