Palestinian Reporters Threatened with Jail over Old City Coverage

While it was well-reported that Israel’s media censor publicly tightened its rules during the brief Israel-Iran War, an unofficial ban on Palestinians reporting in Jerusalem’s Old City is also taking hold, enforced by police threats and settler violence.

Rajai Khateeb is a resident of Jerusalem and a freelance reporter for international media. He has held a press card issued by the Israeli government since 2000 and shows it when confronted by Israeli security personnel. Khateeb also freelances for Jordan TV, producing a weekly report for its award-winning “‘Ayn al-Quds” or “Eye on Jerusalem” program.

But recording these in-person segments is becoming increasingly difficult. Khateeb and other Palestinian journalists working in Jerusalem’s Old City report stepped-up threats and attacks from police and settlers, making them fear for their livelihoods and ability to transmit the news.
“Since October 7, 2023, I have been constantly harassed by the Israeli police.” Khateeb points a finger at the Israeli police unit stationed at the Shalem police station, just outside the Old City walls. “The Shalem police unit based in the police station next to the post office at the beginning of Salah al-Din Street is focused on the work of journalists—especially Palestinian journalists working for an Arab media outlet.”

“They keep preventing me from doing my work. They have stopped me from filming numerous times and have told me I need to get a permit and tell them what I am filming, what the subject is, and what the general storyline line is.” Khateeb says that he knows that few will believe this kind of targeted harassment is happening, but insists that it is a concerted obstruction of the press.
“Even though they know I am a professional accredited journalist, when I flash my Israeli card, they answer me in perfect Arabic: ‘You know what you can do with that card,’” he said.

Little Recourse for Media Attacks

The Foreign Press Association, the professional organization that supports media working in Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories (oPT), has complained about limits on press access and attacks against reporters, including Israeli settler attacks on CNN and Deutsche Welle reporters in two separate July 2025 incidents. But there has long been a fissure in the organization between foreign-employed Palestinian journalists, who are subject to Israeli military regulations that discriminate against them, and international and Israeli journalists. The group has only had one Palestinian chair, and it prioritizes the needs of international (mainly Western) news organizations over individual reporters’ complaints. Israel has denied agencies’ access, banned the Qatar-based satellite channel Al Jazeera from reporting from Israel and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, and controls reporters’ accreditation and ability to stay in the country.

Khateeb was one of the reporters who was recently attacked near the West Bank village of Sinjil by Israeli settlers and—as is too often the case—Israeli soldiers did not step in when the settlers damaged his car.

But he says that this incident dwarfs his experiences in Jerusalem, especially when he is filming his weekly report for Jordan TV.

While he informed the channel’s producer in Amman of the harassment, he has seen no change in police behavior.

In February 2025, the Union of Journalists in Israel, a labor union representing Israeli journalists, sent a letter of complaint to the Israeli police, charging that low-ranking police in the David Precinct, which covers the Old City, are illegally interfering with the work of journalists, interrogating them, and barring them from certain geographical areas.

The union’s Anat Saragusti, who tracks press freedom for the group, told Jerusalem Story that “the Old City of Jerusalem is one of the most problematic places [in terms of access]. Many times, the police ban journalists, especially Palestinians or Arab-speaking [journalists], from covering events in the Old City–even more so inside the Haram al-Sharif. We are following a few cases of journalists who were brutally attacked, and others who got restriction orders from police.”

“You know what you can do with that card.”

Six months ago, Khateeb says that he was confronted by a senior Israeli police officer who threatened to arrest him if he were seen filming for Jordan TV in Jerusalem’s Old City. “He told me that a six-month administrative detention order is ready. ‘If we see you filming in the Old City, you go to jail,’ [he said],” relating the incident to Jerusalem Story.

Israel has a military censor that restricts the publication of sensitive information, and during the June 2025 war between Israel and Iran, new regulations were issued prohibiting reporting at impact sites.

For a week during the war, only Old City residents were allowed into its Muslim and Christian quarters where Palestinians live (see During War with Iran, Israel Imposed Discriminatory Restrictions on Palestinians in the City). However, there has been no formal ban issued on reporting from inside the Old City, and numerous sources say that the threats and attacks are targeted solely at Palestinian journalists—mainly those working for Arab press.

One of the most frightening moments for Khateeb took place this summer in the offices of the director of the Waqf Department. The same senior police officer that had threatened him with arrest told Khateeb that it was his fault that the October 7 attacks happened. “He said, ‘It was your reporting about al-Aqsa [Mosque] that incited Hamas to attack Israelis.’” Israeli law put in place since the Hamas attacks has made it easier for Israeli police to detain and prosecute people for alleged incitement—even for messages posted on social media.

Khateeb has tried to steer clear of the police by using secondhand video to prepare his Jordan TV reports. “I have had to use footage from social media or archival footage for my stories, and I do the stand-up [his presentation of the news] outside of the Old City.”

Asked if Israeli journalists, the Foreign Press Association, or the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate had helped him, he laughed. “They all know all the problems we face, but they are unable, and most likely unwilling, to do something about it.”

Years of Impunity

Nor is Khateeb alone. Christine Rinawi, who also carries an Israeli permanent-resident identity card and previously worked for Palestine Television, faces similar pressures. In 2019, Israeli police ordered the Palestine TV offices in East Jerusalem closed for six months and repeatedly extended the order. Palestine Radio and TV, the Palestinian Authority’s official media channels under the Palestinian Broadcasting Authority, were established as part of the Oslo Accords signed between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993 and 1995.

Although Rinawi continued to do some reporting for Palestine TV from Jerusalem without her crew, she eventually resigned after being detained by Israeli police eight different times. Now Rinawi works for Al Araby TV out of Doha, Qatar. Although she is also accredited by the Israeli Government Press Office, she does most of her reporting outside of Jerusalem, in other areas of the West Bank. Like Khateeb, when she covers stories in Jerusalem, she is often harassed.

Print reporters working for al-Quds and al-Ayyam daily newspapers in Arabic mostly operate from the West Bank city of Ramallah and do their reporting by phone. Unlike TV reporters, they do not need to carry bulky equipment that identifies them as journalists, and so they can blend in with the local population and engage more freely with Jerusalemites without alerting the Israeli police.

Palestinian freelance journalists, who find it very difficult to obtain professional accreditation, face even greater challenges. A number of freelancers have been stopped by Israeli police and security forces from filming in Jerusalem using even their cell phones.

Sometimes even Israeli Jewish journalists are attacked in Jerusalem. In June 2024, journalists including Palestinian photojournalist Saif Qawasmeh, who works for Al-Asima News, and Israeli reporter Nir Hasson of Haaretz were attacked by far-right Israeli nationalists on Flag Day, a march where Israeli far-right youth rampage through the Old City, chanting racist slogans. Hasson tried to protect Qawasmeh from the mob, but the photojournalist, who was wearing a flak jacket clearly marked “Press,” sustained injuries to the head.

The incident was so bad that the US State Department condemned the violence and Israeli police issued a statement, “We strongly condemn any attempt to harm journalists and any other individuals.” Eighteen marchers were reportedly arrested, but it is unclear if any were charged with attacking the journalists.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) also protested the attacks. “Not only did [Israeli police] fail to do their duty, but they blamed Palestinian journalist Saif Qawasmeh for protecting himself from aggression,” said CPJ Program Director Carlos Martìnez de la Serna. Qawasmeh says that hours later, he was detained for half an hour by police and interrogated about his work, while accusing him of incitement. “We call on Israeli authorities to investigate these incidents, identify the culprits, and hold them to account.”

In March 2025, in separate incidents, Reuters correspondent Latifeh Abdellatif and Qawasmeh were detained again while reporting in Jerusalem. This time, they were banned from al-Aqsa Mosque for one week.

Since October 7, 2023, the CPJ has documented the killing by Israel of 186 journalists and media workers in the oPT, Israel, and Lebanon: 178 Palestinians, 2 Israelis, and 6 Lebanese. It has also documented 84 Israeli arrests of Palestinian journalists, at least 4 of them in Jerusalem. The most notorious attack on a Palestinian journalist from Jerusalem was the fatal shooting in Jenin by an Israeli soldier of Palestinian American Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in May 2022. Akleh’s funeral procession was violently interrupted by Israeli police who tried to remove the Palestinian flag from her coffin as pallbearers struggled to hold her body aloft.

Despite police harassment that he says is intended to create fear, Khateeb insists that he will continue his reporting, even for Jordan TV. His program is the only international broadcast dedicated to the daily lives of Palestinians in Jerusalem. “I know that they want us to stop reporting, and they bully us to apply self-censorship, but we will not let them get away with silencing us. We will continue to report from wherever we can and in whatever way we can muster to keep the voice of Jerusalem and Jerusalemites heard.”

Source: JerusalemStory