Israeli jails a 'graveyard,' says freed Palestinian journalist following decline in health

Jenin, Palestinian Territories: A Palestinian journalist said Israeli prisons have become a “graveyard” for the living, following a dramatic decline in his health after being released earlier this year.

Mujahed Bani Mufleh, 37, spent six months in jail after being accused of inciting violence against Israel through his journalistic work.

Two days after his release in January, he suffered a severe brain hemorrhage and was admitted to hospital in critical condition, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group.

Now frail and barely recognisable, Bani Mufleh is recovering at a hospital in Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, after undergoing a series of surgeries during which doctors removed part of his skull.

“The prison was like a graveyard,” Bani Mufleh told AFP, as he undergoes rehabilitation to regain his ability to talk and move.

“I was assaulted inside my home in front of my children,” he said of his 2025 arrest during a raid on his home.

“I was beaten inside the military jeep in the first minutes after my arrest, and on the first day I was taken to hospital because I could no longer breathe as a result of the beating.”

Israeli military and prison authorities did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on Bani Mufleh’s allegations. Israel’s prison service has previously said that all prisoners are detained according to the law with their basic rights fully upheld.

Soon after his release he posted a video online saying that in jail he “came to understand what real hunger means”.

– Detention without charges –

Israeli, Palestinian and international NGOs have warned of alleged mistreatment, torture and a deterioration in conditions inside Israeli prisons.

Bani Mufleh, editor of news website Ultra Palestine, part of Qatar-based media network Ultra Sawt, said he had been “placed in administrative detention without any complete or substantiated charge. They claimed that I incited violence but had no proof”.

Israel has significantly increased its use of administrative detention since the start of the Gaza war, detaining activists, students, academics and journalists, rights groups say.

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The measure allows Israeli authorities to hold individuals without charge for up to six months, renewable indefinitely.

In late April, Israel released 60-year-old journalist Ali Al-Samoudi from Jenin after a year in detention. AFP photographs taken following his release showed him emaciated, having lost around half his body weight.

As of June 3, 2026, the Committee to Protect Journalists has documented 108 arrests of journalists and media workers in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories since October 7, 2023. Israeli authorities carried out 102 of these arrests; and Palestinian authorities arrested six.

Seventy two of these journalists and one media worker – including six held by the Palestinian authorities – have since been released, while 36 remain under arrest.

Bani Mufleh “is not an exception, but one of thousands of cases involving systematic crimes inside the Israeli prison system,” the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said.