Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested Palestinian journalist Ali al-Samoudi early Tuesday morning, April 29, 2024, after breaking into his home in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
Al-Samoudi is a veteran reporter for the Al-Quds newspaper and a contributor to various media outlets, including Al Jazeera.
He has sustained multiple injuries throughout his career, particularly during the Second Intifada. Notably, he was shot by Israeli forces on May 11, 2022—the same day journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while reporting in Jenin.
With Al-Samoudi’s arrest, the number of journalists imprisoned by Israel since the start of the ongoing genocide in Gaza has risen to 49, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
The organization stated that a total of 177 journalists have been arrested or detained by Israeli authorities during this period.
The Prisoners’ Club accused Israel of escalating its systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists through arrests, in tandem with daily attacks on media workers in the field.
It warned that these actions come as part of a broader campaign to suppress the truth and silence the Palestinian narrative.
Since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, at least 212 journalists—including 13 women—have been killed. This figure represents the highest death toll for journalists in any conflict since global records began in 1992.
The statement also noted that 19 of the 49 detained journalists are being held under so-called administrative detention, meaning they are imprisoned without charge or trial based on secret evidence.
Many others are accused of “incitement,” with Israeli occupation authorities increasingly using social media activity as grounds for arrest, thereby exerting even tighter control over journalistic expression.
In addition, imprisoned journalists are reportedly subjected to the same abuses faced by other Palestinian detainees, including deliberate starvation, medical neglect, torture, and various forms of mistreatment.
The Prisoners’ Club also highlighted that many journalists from Gaza remain detained under Israel’s “Unlawful Combatant” law, with several still forcibly disappeared—held without acknowledgment or access to legal representation.
The organization renewed its call on international human rights bodies to reclaim their role in protecting journalists and to end what it described as a “systematic failure” of the global humanitarian and legal system since the onset of the genocide.
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