‘I Want to See My Face’: First Photo of journalist Mohammed Arab after Two Years in Israeli Detention
Sid Shniad
‘I Want to See My Face’: First Photo of Mohammed Arab after Two Years in Israeli Detention
Mohammed Arab: the same journalist, two years apart. (Photo: via social media)
The first image of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Arab in over two years has emerged, revealing the visible toll of Israeli detention.
For more than two years, Palestinian journalist Mohammed Arab disappeared from public view inside Israel’s prison system.
On Monday, an image emerged.
Arab appeared via video link during a hearing before the Israeli Supreme Court, his face visibly changed from the photographs taken before his detention in March 2024.
The image, reportedly the first of the journalist to emerge from Israeli detention, quickly circulated among Palestinian journalists and activists, many of whom placed it alongside older photographs of Arab.
The contrast became the story.
Arab was detained while working as a journalist during the Israeli military’s second raid on Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Medical Complex in March 2024. He has remained imprisoned ever since, separated from his family and profession.
According to his lawyers, he has been detained for more than two years without trial.
‘Can You Describe My Face?’
There is another reason the photograph carries particular significance.
Attorney Khaled Mahajna, who has followed Arab’s case throughout his detention, previously recounted an extraordinary question the journalist asked him during one of their meetings.
“I want to see what I look like,” Arab reportedly told him. “Can you describe my face to me?”
According to Mahajna, Arab had been deprived of the ability to see himself in a mirror during his imprisonment.
Now, for the first time in more than two years, the outside world could see him.
“This is how journalist Mohammed Arab appeared today during the Supreme Court hearing, with features different from how he looked before his arrest,” Mahajna wrote, according to Al Jazeera Arabic.
“For more than two years, I have followed his case, and every time I see him I notice another change in his features,” the lawyer added.
Despite his condition, Mahajna said Arab’s morale remained high.
From Al-Shifa to Israeli Prison
Arab was detained in March 2024 during the Israeli military raid on Al-Shifa Medical Complex, where he had been reporting on events inside the hospital.
His case is now before Israel’s Supreme Court for the first time, following repeated proceedings before the Beersheba (Bir al-Saba’) District Court concerning the extension of his detention.
According to the report, Israeli authorities are holding Arab under the so-called Unlawful Combatants Law.
The legislation allows Palestinians to be detained for prolonged periods on the basis of intelligence material to which detainees and their lawyers may have limited access.
Arab was not physically brought before the Supreme Court in occupied Jerusalem for the latest proceedings. Instead, he appeared remotely by video from Israel’s Naqab Prison.
It was through that small screen that his first image in more than two years emerged.
‘His Face Describes the Suffering’
The photograph triggered an immediate response among Palestinian journalists, including some who had themselves encountered Arab during detention.
Journalist Mahmoud Aliwa said he had last seen Arab at the Sde Teiman detention facility about a month after his arrest.
“I never saw him again after that,” Aliwa wrote, according to Al Jazeera.
“Abu Khaled’s face is enough to describe the suffering of prisoners in Israeli prisons.”
Other Palestinian journalists circulated side-by-side photographs showing Arab before his detention and during Monday’s court appearance.
Journalist Mohammed Haniyeh recalled the account of Arab asking his lawyer to describe his face to him.
“You have seen how his features changed,” he wrote after the new photograph emerged.
For those sharing the image, the transformation was not simply physical. They presented Arab’s face as evidence of what more than two years inside Israeli detention had meant.
Waiting for Freedom
Behind the photograph, however, remains an unresolved legal case.
Arab continues to be held as his lawyers seek his release, more than two years after he was detained while reporting from Al-Shifa Hospital.
And despite the physical transformation described by his lawyer, Mahajna said Arab remained in high spirits.
At the conclusion of the Supreme Court session, the journalist sent messages of love and longing to his family.
For more than two years, Arab had wondered what his own face looked like.
Now, a photograph has allowed everyone else to see it.
(AJA, PC, Social Media)