TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - A new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) suggests that dozens of Palestinian journalists suffered torture, sexual assault and hunger after being arrested by Israeli authorities during the two-year war between Israel and the militant group Hamas in Gaza.
The US-based NGO said it had collected 59 testimonies from media professionals detained by Israel since October 7, 2023. All but one of the testimonies reported abuse.
According to the group, Israel arrested at least 94 Palestinian journalists and one media worker during the two-year war. Of those arrested, 60 were from the illegally occupied West Bank and 33 were from the Gaza Strip.
Most Held Without Charges
The majority of the journalists held, 48 of them, were not charged with any crime, with Israel holding them under so-called administrative arrest, a legal situation that refers to Palestinians imprisoned without trial and without the opportunity to mount a defense against allegations, with some detainees held for periods of over two years without legal due process.
According to the Israeli NGO Hamoked: Center for the Defense of the Individual, 3,358 Palestinians were held in administrative detention as of February 2026. Of those, 3,308 were awaiting trial, and 1,249 were classified as "illegal combatants."
This category, as defined by Israeli law, primarily affects Palestinians in Gaza who do not meet the criteria for being held as prisoners of war under international humanitarian law.
Ten other journalists were charged with incitement, anti-state activity or promoting terrorism.
As of Thursday, 30 journalists still remain in Israeli custody, according to the CPJ.
More than 200 media professionals were killed during Israel's two-year war in Gaza, according to the United Nations.
Physical, Mental and Sexual Abuse Listed
The report lists several of the testimonies, which include graphic descriptions of sexual, physical and mental violence.
One such testimony is of Ahmed Abdel Aal.
Abdel Aal, who works for the Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency, according to CPJ's website, said he had experienced a five-day period in which loud music was played at high volume, while being blindfolded, stripped and beaten.
Abdel Aal said he had been awakened with electric shocks or blows whenever he was close to becoming unconscious.
Another testimony of a Palestinian journalist, who did not want to be named for fear of being detained again, described how soldiers bound his genitals with zip ties and beat him.
The journalist said the soldiers had told him he would "no longer be a man."
Other accounts in the report include violence and mental torture, including following a visit by Israel's far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose office oversees the work of the Israel Prison Service.
Ben-Gvir spoke often of the harsh conditions imposed on Palestinian prisoners since he took office in December 2022. Some of the Israeli hostages held by the Hamas group in Gaza said after their release that Ben-Gvir's boasting about the Palestinian prisoners' treatment had led their captors to impose worse conditions in response.
Other NGOs Also Report Abuses
Though CPJ emphasized that it could not independently verify each report, similar accounts have repeatedly been made public by human rights organizations regarding the detention conditions for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel since October 7, 2023.
January's "Living Hell" report by the Israeli NGO B'Tselem includes descriptions of a similar nature, with organization head Yuli Novak telling DW that Israel's prisons have turned into "a network of torture camps."
In one case that made headlines in Israel and around the world, footage made public by Israeli media appeared to show soldiers sexually and physically abusing a Palestinian detainee in the Sde Teiman detention center in June 2024.
Israeli far-right supporters, including some high-profile members of the government, then stormed both Sde Teiman and the Beit Lid military court in solidarity with the reservists reported to have committed the abuse.
The reservists are suspected of raping and severely abusing the Palestinian man in the video at Sde Teiman. His injuries were so serious that he had to be hospitalized.
The case is still being discussed in Israeli courts. In November 2025, the daily newspaper Haaretz reported that the government's release of the man to Gaza as part of the deal that secured the release of the living Israeli hostages without his providing testimony to authorities increases the likelihood that the charges will be dropped.
Israel's government and its official prison service have repeatedly denied accounts of abuse in the country's prisons.
Read: UN Security Council Blasts Israel's West Bank Plans
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