Palestinian Journalist Mujahed al-Saadi Violently Arrested by Israeli Forces in Home Raid
Al-Saadi is being held in administrative detention at Megiddo, a prison known for abuse
This month, we published a dispatch from Palestinian journalist Mujahed al-Saadi documenting the IDF’s siege of hospitals in Jenin. On September 19, al-Saadi was violently dragged from his home and remains in Israeli captivity.
Update: On September 30, an Israeli military court ordered al-Saadi be held in administrative detention for six months, according to his lawyer. Administrative detention allows the Israeli authorities to detain people without charge or trial, with detention orders often being arbitrarily renewed. There are currently over 3,300 prisoners being held in administrative detention by Israel.
At around 2:30 a.m. on September 19, several Israeli military vehicles surrounded the home of Mujahed al-Saadi, a well-known Palestinian journalist in the West Bank.
Members of an Israeli special forces unit broke down his door and stormed inside, according to Mujahed’s brother, Hamadah. Using the butts of their M16 rifles and their bare fists, they beat the barefoot al-Saadi in his face and chest. Al-Saadi’s wife, three young children, and father also reside in the house. When his wife tried to hand him his shoes, the soldiers beat her as well, according to his colleague in Jenin who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for their safety.
The Israeli soldiers then took Mujahed to Jalameh prison to interrogate him before transferring him to Megiddo, a prison notorious for abuse and mistreatment of prisoners. At least four detainees have died inside the prison since October as a result of severe beatings by prison guards or medical neglect.
Since al-Saadi’s arrest on Thursday, he has had no contact with family members or his lawyer. The Israeli military did not provide a response in time for publication.
A veteran journalist based in Jenin, al-Saadi has covered the region since 2012. He reported a story for Drop Site News earlier this month on Israeli forces laying siege to hospitals in Jenin during its invasion of the city and refugee camp. In the course of his reporting, he and a group of colleagues came under fire from Israeli troops, who proceeded to charge at them at high speeds with bulldozers. On May 11, 2022, al-Saadi was reporting on the aftermath of an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp. He was standing only a few feet from Shireen Abu Akleh, the renowned Al Jazeera journalist, when an Israeli sniper murdered her. (You can watch al-Saadi’s account of that day in the Fault Lines documentary, “The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh”).
Since October 7, Israel has arrested an unprecedented 51 journalists and media workers in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel continues to hold at least 14 of those journalists under administrative detention.
“Israel has been arresting Palestinian journalists in record numbers and using administrative detention to keep them behind bars, thus depriving the region not only of much needed information, but also of Palestinian voices on the conflict,” CPJ Program Director Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in a statement.
On Sunday—three days after al-Saadi’s arrest—armed Israeli soldiers raided Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah and ordered the network to shut down operations for 45 days. Walid al-Omari, Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief, said the Israeli military’s closure order accused the network of “incitement to and support of terrorism” without providing evidence. The network later aired footage of Israel troops tearing down a banner of Shireen Abu Akleh on a balcony used by the Al Jazeera office.
In Gaza, the Israeli military has killed over 160 journalists, over the past year, making it the deadliest place in the world for journalists in living memory.
Mariam Barghouti contributed reporting.
It has never been clearer that our most prescient commentator was Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
This is no longer in doubt, the question is what are we going to do about it?
One thing might be to support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will.
https://www.unrwausa.org/donate
Nearing 600 killed in Lebanon over the past two days. There are already 40,000 US troops now in the Middle East and more on the way. And this in AP News:
“On Monday, the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman, two Navy destroyers and a cruiser set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, headed to the Sixth Fleet area in Europe on a regularly scheduled deployment. The ships’ departure opens up the possibility that the U.S. could keep both the Truman and the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which is in the Arabian Gulf, in the region in case more violence breaks out.”
And US citizens have no say what our government is doing.