{"id":785592,"date":"2026-05-10T02:27:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T02:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/785592\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T02:27:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T02:27:24","slug":"palestinian-journalist-details-israeli-food-rations-after-losing-130-pounds-in-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/785592\/","title":{"rendered":"Palestinian journalist details Israeli food rations after losing 130 pounds in jail"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Palestinian journalist recently released<\/a> from one year in Israeli jail, where he was held without charge, recounted the severe conditions he said prisoners experience in a Thursday interview with CNN.<\/p>\n

Ali Samoudi lost 130 pounds while in prison and was barely recognizable to family and friends after he was released on April 30.<\/p>\n

Samoudi was held by Israel using a controversial legal tool called administrative detention, which allows authorities to indefinitely keep a suspect in custody without charge, based on covert intelligence information.<\/p>\n

While some in administrative detention are eventually charged, others \u2014 including Samoudi \u2014 are not.<\/p>\n

Defense Minister Israel Katz barred the use of the practice against Jewish suspects last year, and it is now only employed against some 4,000 Palestinians and a small number of Arab Israelis, leading to charges of discrimination by Israeli authorities.<\/p>\n

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Samoudi, in the CNN interview, said prisoners are given small rations of food each day.<\/p>\n

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Palestinian journalist Ali al-Samoudi was recently released from Israeli prison, where he was held for a year without charge and without a trial. He lost around half his body weight behind bars. \u201cIt was a real hell,\u201d he tells @JDiamond1<\/a>, in this heart-wrenching report. pic.twitter.com\/WH0tqu4lyn<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) May 8, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He said breakfast consisted of one spoon of labneh and a quarter spoon of jam; lunch is four spoons of rice, two slices of cucumber and one spoon of white beans; while dinner is two spoons of hummus, one spoon of tahini and a hard-boiled egg.\n<\/p>\n

Samoudi did not see how much weight he lost until his release, saying he was banned from seeing a mirror. \u201cI felt something dreadful. My situation was difficult, and I understood that, but I did not imagine it was to this extent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A recent report<\/a> from Israel\u2019s own Public Defender\u2019s Office determined that Palestinian security detainees held in Israeli prisons have suffered from severe and systematic violence from prison guards, deprivation of food, and medical neglect, while also having been subjected to unsanitary conditions that caused and exacerbated outbreaks of disease in the prisons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was true hell. Prison today is hell in every sense of the word. Everything they practice with us was punishment and revenge,\u201d Samoudi said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne time after I returned from a visit with my lawyer, they threw us on the ground face-first and they started hitting us. An Israeli officer stepped on my head to press my face into the ground for four minutes, as I suffocated,\u201d he alleged.<\/p>\n

In another incident, Samoudi said a 22-year-old inmate was refused medical treatment by Israeli guards.<\/p>\n

\n

Prisoner Loay Faisal Turkman, from the Al-Almaniyya neighborhood in Jenin, has been martyred inside Israeli occupation prisons. pic.twitter.com\/QUlOK93AJG<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Palestinian Center for Prisoners Advocacy (@PalPrisonersA) June 30, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cHe got sick at night, and we asked them to take him to the clinic, but they refused\u2026 In the morning, we asked again. [but they refused]\u2026 We brought him out to the yard on his mattress, but they still didn\u2019t take him,\u201d he charged. \u201cHe died in front of us.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

CNN identified the man as Loay Faisal Turkman from Jenin. He was also held without charge.<\/p>\n

By the end of 2025, the number of Palestinians who died in Israeli custody since Hamas\u2019s October 7, 2023, attack and the ensuing Gaza war rose to nearly 100 people, according to a report<\/a> by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel<\/p>\n

The Israel Prison Service did not respond to a request for comment on Samoudi\u2019s detention or why he was held for so long if he was never charged. It also declined to comment on Turkman\u2019s case.<\/p>\n

IPS, in the past, has denied allegations of mistreatment and insisted inmates are treated according to international law.<\/p>\n

However, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, whose office oversees the IPS, routinely boasts of having worsened the conditions of Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli custody, claiming they were too comfortable before he took over three years ago.<\/p>\n

Samoudi was shot in 2022 by Israeli forces during the same incident in which his colleague, Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, was killed by troops. The Israel Defense Forces later concluded \u201cwith very high likelihood\u201d that a single soldier opened fire after \u201cmisidentifying her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tBanners depicting slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh hang on a building overlooking the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem in the West Bank, on July 14, 2022. (Ahmad Gharabli\/AFP)<\/p>\n

CNN said that when it asked the IDF why Samoudi was detained in early 2025, the military responded that he identified as a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group and was suspected of having transferred funds to the organization.<\/p>\n

Samoudi called the allegation \u201cbullshit\u201d and said he was never questioned on the matter while held in detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy arrest is part of the Israeli war against the Palestinian press and media to silence my voice, to block my camera, to break my pen, and to thus prevent me from practicing my right guaranteed by all laws and international norms \u2014 the freedom of the press,\u201d he claimed.<\/p>\n

Thirty-three Palestinian journalists are currently being held in Israeli prisons, the vast majority in administrative detention, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Only two other countries \u2014 China and Myanmar \u2014 detained more journalists than Israel in 2025, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.<\/p>\n

Israel has rejected allegations that it deliberately targets journalists and asserts that many of the ostensible members of the press who have been killed throughout the war were, in fact, combatants.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tScreengrabs of a video posted to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir\u2019s Telegram page on October 31, 2025, showing him next to tied-up Palestinian prisoners. (Telegram)<\/p>\n

In some cases, the IDF has provided documentation seized from terror groups in Gaza that list the journalists as fighters for those organizations.<\/p>\n

A study published in December by an Israeli research center claimed that 60% of 266 press workers killed since Hamas launched the war with an invasion and massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023, either strongly identified with or were members of Gaza-based terror groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with many working as propagandists.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, journalists enjoy protection under international humanitarian law until they take up arms and participate directly in hostilities, in which case they become a legitimate target.<\/p>\n

Asked if he was scared about being rearrested, Samoudi told CNN that he was, but that being a journalist is his life\u2019s mission and that he plans to keep reporting.<\/p>\n

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