Gaza Journalists Released From Israeli Jails Say Their Jobs Made Them Targets

On August 9, 2026, Israeli authorities informed the Palestinian Commission of Detainees Affairs of the death of journalist Ihab Diab while in Israeli custody.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a nongovernmental organization that supports Palestinians incarcerated by Israel, Diab was arrested on December 12, 2023, from the home of one of his relatives in the northern Gaza Strip. The Prisoners’ Club said the Israeli authorities attributed Diab’s death to his health condition, without providing sufficient details about the circumstances of his death. Diab’s fate and whereabouts had remained unknown for nearly two years. After contacting his family, the Prisoners’ Club confirmed that Diab had not suffered from any known health condition before his arrest and that he had been in excellent health.

Diab’s case reflects a broader pattern of secret detention documented by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. A 2024 report stated that thousands of Palestinians, including journalists, had been detained since October 7, 2023, and that many were held in secret, without being informed of the reasons for their detention or being granted effective access to lawyers or judicial review. The report also documented allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

A statement issued by the Commission of Detainees Affairs on August 9, 2026, regarding Palestinian journalist and prisoner Ihab Diab, said that Diab’s death brought the total number of Palestinian prisoners who have died in Israeli custody since 1967 to 328, including 91 since October 7, 2023.

Although journalists are protected under international humanitarian law, this does not mean that they have special immunity from arrest. Rather, journalists are considered civilians as long as they do not directly participate in hostilities. Article 79 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions recognizes journalists engaged in dangerous professional missions in areas of armed conflict as civilians and therefore grants them the protections afforded to civilians.

Furthermore, the UN Convention against Torture absolutely prohibits torture. Article 2 states that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever — including war, the threat of war, or any other public emergency — may be invoked as a justification for torture.

However, testimonies from Palestinian journalists released from Israeli prisons present a different picture.

Journalist Yousef Sharaf, who works for Shehab News Agency in Gaza, was among those swept up during the Israeli military raid on Al-Shifa Hospital. He was arrested on March 19, 2024, after seeking refuge in the hospital following the bombing of his home on October 25, 2023.

“I was displaced and working to document the events,” Sharaf told me. “The residential area where my family was staying was bombed. More than 600 people were killed in the massacre. I lost 37 members of my family, including my wife and my four children.”

Sharaf said that the soldiers that arrested him knew he was a journalist because of having checked his identification, and that one of the soldiers told him: “You are Yousef Sharaf. You work for Shehab.” He confirmed that he did.

He added that the soldier told him that the Israeli forces had come “to arrest journalists.”

Sharaf said that during his interrogation, Israeli soldiers implied that he was targeted as a journalist because journalists have direct contact with many people across Gaza, meaning they may have knowledge of the locations of resistance fighters. He said the interrogators were interested in his journalistic work and professional relationships.

Sharaf also spoke about being denied medical care. He said that he developed arthritis and requested treatment, but that Israeli soldiers said that prisoners “did not deserve treatment.”

“I needed knee surgery, so the imprisoned doctor Nahid Abu Tuaima performed the operation using a razor blade. He sterilized the blade and my leg with chlorine,” Sharaf said.

He said that he had been subjected to beatings, torture, and humiliation. “I spent 10 months in prison, during which I was subjected to all kinds of beatings and torture. I was beaten with sticks, weapons, batons, and hands,” Sharaf said.

He was released on January 30, 2025, and has returned to his work as a journalist.

Sharaf was not the only journalist to be targeted by Israel.

Alaa Al-Sarraj was arrested in November 2023 while traveling from northern Gaza to the south. He told me that informing the soldiers that he was a journalist did not protect him from arrest; instead, his profession became a focus of his interrogation.

“At the beginning of the interrogation, I told the soldier that I worked as a journalist,” Al-Sarraj said. “I believed that being a journalist would protect me under international humanitarian law, but being a journalist was the direct reason I was taken prisoner.”

Al-Sarraj said that interrogators at Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base notorious for its torture and abuse of detained Palestinians, questioned him in detail about his journalistic work and his network of contacts, including his relationships with doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital, politicians, political organizations, and other journalists. “The soldiers interrogated me three or four times a day. The interrogation was torture, with beatings and insults,” Al-Sarraj said.

Sharaf and Al-Sarraj’s experiences are consistent with published testimonies of other Palestinian journalists from Gaza about their conditions in Israeli prisons. Reporters Without Borders notes that the journalists described beatings, humiliation, deprivation, and interrogations that focused particularly on their journalistic work and professional networks.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has likewise documented the treatment of Palestinian detainees, including being stripped, blindfolded, tightly restrained in ways that caused injuries, sexual assaults, religious insults and threats, as well as poor treatment during transfer and detention.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has also documented torture, reporting that some Palestinians in Israel’s custody were subjected to practices including the use of dogs, severe violence, and interrogation methods that violate international law. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned that secret and prolonged detention incommunicado may itself amount to a form of torture.

As for journalists, the testimonies of Sharaf and Al-Sarraj raise a question that goes beyond the issue of arrest: What happens when journalistic work itself becomes a reason for imprisonment, beatings, and insults?

In Sharaf’s case, he said that the soldiers knew from the moment of his arrest that he was a journalist. In Al-Sarraj’s case, the interrogators focused on his journalistic work and professional network.

While international law recognizes journalists as civilians and protects them during armed conflicts, these legal protections do not end when a journalist is detained. Every person deprived of liberty must be treated humanely and with dignity, and international law prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Journalists like Yousef Sharaf and Alaa Al-Sarraj reported beatings, torture, and lack of adequate medical treatment of in Israeli prisons. Such testimony raises an important question: How did journalist Ihab Diab die in Israeli custody?