Israeli Military Detains 42 Palestinian Journalists in 2025, Including Eight Women

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has announced that in 2025, the Israeli military has arrested at least 42 Palestinian journalists, including eight female reporters, across the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the occupied territories of 1948. The syndicate reports that a large portion of these arrests occurred while journalists were performing their media duties.

According to the report, Israeli authorities have continued a policy of systematically targeting journalists; this policy includes arbitrary and administrative detentions, beatings, exile, confiscation of media equipment, and forced interrogations. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate emphasized that the main aim of these actions is to silence news coverage and weaken the Palestinian media structure.

The syndicate’s Freedoms Committee has noted a worrying shift in the pattern of detentions, highlighting that the focus has increasingly been on influential journalists, repeated arrests of individuals, expanded use of administrative detention without charge, and the deployment of physical and psychological violence as deterrents.

The report states that dozens of journalists were detained while covering military raids—an action believed by the syndicate to be aimed at clearing areas of independent witnesses. Additionally, raids on journalists’ homes and their arrests in front of family members have increased, serving as methods of psychological and social pressure.

The Freedoms Committee described administrative detention as the most dangerous form of suppression, warning that this method imprisons journalists without trial or set time limits and constitutes a clear violation of international law. The report also mentions incidents of beatings, dragging journalists on the ground, threats with weapons, and confiscation of media equipment without its return.

In conclusion, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate has called on the United Nations and international human rights organizations to intervene immediately and hold accountable those responsible for ordering and perpetrating violations against Palestinian journalists’ rights.