On March 19, 2024, Israeli forces at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City arrested Yousef Sharaf, a journalist for the local Shehab News Agency who was sheltering in the complex with many others after his home was bombed, killing several family members. On January 30, 2025, Sharaf, was released after almost 10 months in Israeli detention.
His detention was part of an Israeli offensive on the complex during which scores of Palestinians, including journalists, were arrested.
Upon his release, Sharaf told CPJ that he was subjected to torture and mistreatment in detention. He said that, upon detention, Israeli soldiers stripped him of his clothes except for his underwear and kept him in the rain.
Sharaf’s testimony to CPJ is consistent with to the remarks given to CPJ in 2024 by Alaa Skafi, director of Palestinian prisoner support group Addameer, when the organization's lawyer visited Sharaf in the Ktz’iot Prison in the Negev desert in November 2024.
Sharaf told CPJ that upon his arrest, his identity was inspected by soldiers “wearing military uniforms with the American flag on their right shoulders,” he said. When they discovered his identity as a journalist working for Shahab News Agency, Israeli soldiers confiscated his mobile phone, 400 shekels (US$110), and his ID card, he said.
Sharaf said that he was tied up, insulted, and taken to Sde Teiman detention center, where he and other detainees were severely beaten during transport.
In Sde Teiman, he recalls, “we were given numbers and dealt with by numbers instead of our names.” He added that he “remained there for 94 days, during which I saw all kinds of torture. Then we were transferred to Ofer Prison for 33 days, and then to Kitz'iot Prison in the Negev desert for six months until I was released.”
Sharaf said that he was presented before a court via Zoom without any interrogation, where the judge ordered the extension of his detention until the end of the war on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization.
He added that, “after the court session, I was interrogated. The Israeli officer told me they arrest journalists because they have a lot of information, and they reach militants through them — they consider us an information bank and a major asset.”
Sharaf said that Israeli forces threatened him prior to his release with assassination. “I am forbidden from conducting any media interviews or appearing on television, from participating in any demonstrations.”
In a February 2025 interview with Al Jazeera, Sharaf said wounds from repeated beatings became infected in the poor sanitary conditions of the prisons, resulting in abscesses across his body. He said that after going without medical care from prison authorities, another detainee, Dr. Nahed Abu Taima, an imprisoned surgeon from Nasser Medical Complex, performed improvised procedures using what detainees believed was cleaning bleach.
While Sharaf was still detained in 2024, Skafi told CPJ that Sharaf told Addameer’s lawyer that he was beaten with rifle butts for hours and was then transferred from one prison to another until he ended up in the Negev desert prison.
Skafi said that an investigator from Israel’s Shin Bet security agency told Sharaf that he was arrested because he is a journalist, as he may have information about the Hamas militant group, which Israel is fighting in Gaza, due to his work.
Skafi told CPJ that journalists from Gaza are generally held under the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law. According to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, the law allows Israel to hold detainees for long periods of time without charge and with limited access to legal counsel. Skafi and B’Tselem both described overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and abuse at Israeli prison facilities housing Palestinian journalists.
Sharaf 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.”