Palestinian Journalists Face Detention and Death Amid Escalating Repression

November 17, 2024 – Palestine/Israel –

Palestinian journalists are increasingly under siege, facing arrest, intimidation, and lethal attacks amid the intensifying conflict across the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In a troubling trend, Israel continues to detain journalists while simultaneously targeting media workers in Gaza with airstrikes, undermining press freedom and endangering those reporting from the frontlines.

On June 2, 2024, journalist Rasha Harzallah, a correspondent for the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, was sentenced to six months in Israeli prison by a military court at Salem and fined 13,000 shekels. She had been arrested during a raid on her home in the northern West Bank. The charges against her have not been publicly detailed, fueling concerns over the lack of transparency and fairness in proceedings against Palestinian media workers. Her detention is not an isolated case—nearly 100 Palestinian journalists have reportedly been detained since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023.

In a separate incident, Tharwat Shaqra, another Palestinian journalist, was among four individuals arrested during an Israeli raid in the town of Abu Dis near occupied Jerusalem. These arrests form part of a broader pattern of repression aimed at silencing critical voices in the West Bank.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, the situation for journalists is even more dire. On June 5, 2025, an Israeli airstrike targeted the courtyard of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, killing three journalists—Suleiman Hajjaj, Ismail Badah, and Samir Al-Rifai—and critically injuring a fourth, Ahmed Qalja. The journalists had been reporting on the humanitarian crisis when the drone strike hit. Press freedom organizations condemned the attack as a deliberate targeting of media workers, which may constitute a war crime under international law.

Together, these events reveal a strategy of dual repression: judicial silencing of journalists in the West Bank and military violence against those in Gaza. Palestinian media professionals continue to risk their freedom and lives to report from one of the world’s most dangerous regions for journalists. Advocacy groups are calling for international intervention to end these violations and ensure accountability, emphasizing that journalism must not be treated as a crime or a military threat.

Reference – 

Israel imprisons Palestinian journalist from occupied West Bank

https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/151711

Israeli military court sentences Palestinian journalist Rasha Harzallah to prison