Corners

Unbelievable story on how Israel silences and tortures journalists, brought by the fantastic Nir Hasson of Haaretz. A Palestinian journalist was starved in Israeli prisons and spoke out about it. Israel arrested him again. When a judge found no case against him, a sealed envelope kept him locked up anyway. 1) Samer Khuweira, a journalist from Nablus, spent nine months in administrative detention. He was released in January with no charge, no trial and no evidence. 2) He lost 22 kilograms and came out with scabies. His nine-year-old son did not recognize him. Breakfast had been a spoonful of labneh measured against lines on a plastic cup. 3) About the sick prisoners in Megiddo, he said: “Have you ever seen walking skeletons? Their legs are covered in blood, their chests are covered in blood. We called them zombies.” 4) He asked a Shin Bet officer why he had been held. The officer said there was “no direct reason,” only that he and his friends were “Hamas.” 5) Three weeks after Haaretz published his account, soldiers arrested him at home for online “incitement.” The key posts dated from January 2025, and he had already been questioned about them. 6) The military judge called it an investigative failure and ordered him released on bail, citing press freedom as a “cornerstone of a democratic society.” 7) Khuweira shouted with joy on the phone line. Then the prosecutor handed the judge a sealed request for administrative detention. Three minutes later the judge ordered him held again. 8) Israel has detained 112 Palestinian journalists and media workers since the war began, according to CPJ. 38 were still held as of October 21. The evidence couldn’t hold him. Secret evidence that he and his lawyers can’t see sent him back to the prisons he had just exposed. There is no freedom of the press in Israel. Especially not for Palestinians.