Palestinian journalist Abed Abou Shhadeh has been released by Israeli authorities following a five-day detention period conducted without formal charges. The journalist, who maintains his professional integrity, stated on Sunday that his arrest was part of larger political measures intended to intimidate the Arab population within Israel. “They were trying to say that he’s not a journalist, that he’s a political counsel.”. “He travelled to Doha as a journalist … he came back as a journalist.
Abou Shhadeh, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was taken into custody last Tuesday during a nighttime raid on his Jaffa home. According to his legal counsel, approximately 15 security officers participated in the operation, seizing electronic devices and books while in the presence of his two children.
Following his arrest, he was held at a Shin Bet intelligence facility located in Petah Tikva. Authorities had accused him of maintaining contact with a foreign agent and allegedly receiving foreign funding to influence Israeli Arab voters. These claims surfaced after he appeared as an analyst on and contributed to the al-Midan podcast for the Arab48 website.
Hadeel Abu Salih, a human rights lawyer representing him through the legal rights group Adalah, stated that the allegations were based solely on a public conversation he had with Palestinian intellectual Azmi Bishara while in Qatar.
Abu Salih argued that the Israeli justice system transformed legitimate political analysis into a criminal suspicion, noting that the topics Abou Shhadeh covered were often discussed openly in mainstream Israeli media outlets.
“This is now being criminalised only because the speakers are Palestinians,” Abu Salih explained, adding that authorities attempted to characterize his journalistic work as political counsel to delegitimize his status as a reporter. She emphasized that there was no evidence to support the state’s suspicions from the very beginning of the detention. “It was obvious from the first day, from Thursday, that the police doesn’t have, any evidence in this context,” Abu Salih said.
Adalah founder Hassan Jabareen characterized the incident as a coordinated campaign targeting the political participation of Palestinians in Israel. Jabareen asserted that the government aimed to delegitimize the votes of the Arab community by claiming that illegal methods were being used in the electoral process. But he was arrested as an Arab political person,” Jabareen said. “They tried to use him in order to say that Arabs use illegal [means] in their political participation in the Israeli elections. ”.
Reflecting on his experience after being released, Abou Shhadeh expressed his resolve to continue his career. He stated that the appropriate response to such pressure is to maintain one’s path and continue the search for truth, reaffirming his commitment to his work despite the challenges posed by his recent detention.
