Palestinian journalist Ahmed Abdel Aal remembers the moment the ear-splitting music started. For five days, he said, he was held blindfolded in a room in an Israeli detention site, stripped and beaten, while loud Hebrew and English songs played at an unrelenting volume, says a special report by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Every time he drifted into unconsciousness, an electric shock or a blow jolted him awake.
Another journalist, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, described similar treatment inside what detainees refer to as the “disco room”.
- READ MORE: The full CPJ special report: ‘We returned from hell’: Palestinian journalists recount torture in Israeli prisons
- Other Gaza journalist reports
He said soldiers bound his genitals with zip ties and beat him until the injuries made it impossible to urinate without blood.
“They told me that I would no longer be a man,” he said.
Their accounts are among 59 in-depth testimonies collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists from Palestinian journalists released from Israeli custody since October 7, 2023.
These interviews revealed that 58 — all but one of those released — reported being subjected to what they described as torture, abuse, or other forms of violence since the onset of what human rights groups agree is a genocide.
Documented detention
CPJ has documented the detention of at least 94 Palestinian journalists and one media worker in that period – 32 journalists and one media worker from Gaza, 60 from the West Bank, and two in Israel.
Thirty remained in custody, as of February 19, 2026. CPJ’s 2025 Prison Census found that Israel has been listed as a top jailer of journalists since 2023
The Committee to Protect Journalists attempted to contact all 65 journalists released from Israeli custody since October 7, 2023. One, Ismail al-Ghoul, was killed in an Israeli air strike, and the five others declined to speak.
CPJ could not independently verify each allegation, but the reports align with findings by human rights organisations documenting similar treatment of Palestinians in Israeli detentions, which Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has described as a “network of torture camps”.
Republished by Pacific Media Watch from the CPJ website via Creative Commons.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
Pacific Media Watch | Radio Free (2026-02-20T11:10:00+00:00) ‘We returned from hell’ – CPJ’s report on Palestinian journalists tortured in Israeli prisons. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2026/02/20/we-returned-from-hell-cpjs-report-on-palestinian-journalists-tortured-in-israeli-prisons-2/
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