Israeli soldiers arrested Mohammed El Hendi, a camera operator for the Qatari-based broadcaster Al Jazeera, and his brother and camera assistant, Yousef El Hendi, in a March 18, 2024 offensive on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa hospital complex in which scores of Palestinians were detained, Yousef El Hendi told CPJ in March 2025.
Yousef El Hendi, 24, was released on February 15, 2025, in a prisoner hostage exchange between Israel and Hamas. As of March 2026, Mohammed El Hendi, 28, remained in custody.
“They treated us very harshly,” said Yousef El Hendi, describing his detention at a center called Mardawanat in the Gaza envelope, a buffer zone on the border of Israel and Gaza.
“These are like animal cages, holding 120 detainees. They [the captors] called them names like Hell, Jahannam [Arabic for hell], and Iqab [Arabic for punishment]. Opposite them, there were two towers for occupation soldiers to monitor us,” he said.
Yousef El Hendi said he also spent two months in the West Bank’s Ofer Prison, where he was subjected to “the most horrific forms of torture and abuse,” and Ktzi’ot Prison in southern Israel’s Negev desert, from where he was among several prisoners released “after they threatened us not to make statements to the media.”
He said interrogators accused him of “belonging to Hamas and working with Al Jazeera, which the investigators described as a terrorist channel.”
“As a result of the torture and medical neglect, I developed large boils all over my body, as well as wounds that did not heal for six months, and they never treated me,” he said. “Every two or three weeks, they give us three painkillers, which we share with 15 other people. In addition, the food is not fit for animals and is in very small quantities.”
He said his weight fell from 110 to 80 kilograms (243 to 176 pounds).
El Hendi 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.”