Israel has abducted at least 98 Palestinian journalists since the start of its genocidal campaign of death and destruction in Gaza in October, says an advocacy group.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a recent statement that 52 of them were still languishing in Israeli jails and detention centers across the occupied territories. The organization said among the detained journalists, 15 are being held under so-called administrative detention, including six female journalists.
The Israeli policy of administrative detention allows Israeli authorities to extend the detention of a Palestinian prisoner indefinitely without charge or trial.
Elsewhere in the statement, the group said among the journalist detainees from Gaza are Nidal al-Wahidi and Haitham Abdelwahid, who were subjected to forced disappearance with no information about their conditions.
For its part, the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement on Tuesday, saying Israel was cracking down on media by imprisoning journalists. “Since October 7, Israel has been arresting Palestinian journalists in record numbers and using administrative detention to keep them behind bars, thus depriving the region not only of much needed information, but also of Palestinian voices on the conflict.”
Journalists working in Palestinian territories face heightened risks while covering the conflict, dealing with Israeli ground assaults and airstrikes, interrupted communications, supply shortages, and power outages.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza has become “the bloodiest for journalists” since the committee began documenting journalist killings worldwide in 1992.
Experts of the United Nations have previously warned about “the extraordinarily high numbers of journalists and media workers who have been killed, attacked, injured and detained in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
