Amid an ongoing clampdown on public freedoms and escalating violations against journalistic work, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has revealed that Israeli occupation forces arrested 42 Palestinian journalists, including eight women, during 2025 across the West Bank, Jerusalem, and areas within 1948 territories. This reflects a systematic escalation aimed at silencing Palestinian media and undermining its professional and oversight role.
The syndicate stated that these arrests were part of a broader campaign involving arbitrary and administrative detention, beatings, coercive interrogations, forced removals, and seizure of equipment, clearly intended to suppress media coverage and dismantle national journalism, particularly amidst intensifying field violations.
The Syndicate’s Freedoms Committee highlighted what it described as a “dangerous shift” in the nature of these arrests, with occupation forces increasingly targeting the most influential journalists, often arresting the same individuals repeatedly, and expanding the use of administrative detention without charge, alongside systematic physical and psychological abuse.
The report documented dozens of cases in which journalists were arrested while reporting in the field, particularly during military raids, describing this as a direct attempt to “empty the field of witnesses”, thereby undermining the public’s right to know and denying access to objective reporting.
The Syndicate also pointed to a rise in raids on journalists’ homes and arrests conducted in front of their families, a practice designed to psychologically and socially break them, and to spread fear beyond the individual to their wider social and professional circles.
The Freedoms Committee considered the intensive use of administrative detention as the most dangerous form of repression, turning journalists into prisoners of conscience with no time limits, stripping them of legal guarantees or the right to defend themselves, an egregious violation of basic principles of justice.
The report also noted that journalists have been subjected to beatings, dragging, weapon threats, and confiscation of equipment without return, in actions aimed at disabling their professional capabilities and preventing them from carrying out their duties.
This escalation comes despite clear international legal standards that protect journalism. International humanitarian law recognises the special protection of journalists during armed conflicts, affirming that they must not be targeted, obstructed, or punished for their professional work. Freedom of expression, including press freedom, is a fundamental right that cannot be arbitrarily restricted, even during emergencies or wars.
Administrative detention, especially when used against journalists, is a flagrant form of arbitrary detention, as it occurs without charge or fair trial, and lacks legal safeguards, making it a punitive tool beyond the rule of law, and a clear breach of the principle of legal accountability.
Targeting journalists while covering events on the ground, seizing their tools, or subjecting them to violence and threats not only harms individuals, it strikes at the heart of the collective right to information, and undermines the media’s vital role in exposing violations and reporting the truth.
The report comes amid devastating losses suffered by Palestinian media in recent years. In December 2025, Gaza’s Government Media Office announced that 257 Palestinian journalists had been killed during the genocidal war waged by the occupation on Gaza, a conflict, backed by the United States, that lasted two years and ended with a ceasefire agreement after over 71,000 deaths and 171,000 injuries.
