![[Freelance]](../gif/fl3H.png)
Where is Ali Samoudi?
Ali Samoudi
THE WHEREABOUTS of prominent West Bank Journalist Ali Samoudi are unknown since his abduction on 29 April from his son’s home in Jenin city in the occupied West Bank. Ali has not been seen since he was taken to an unnamed Israeli hospital on the day he was seized.
Mohammad Samoudi told CNN that his father “underwent a field interrogation” by Israeli forces for 30 minutes, after which they searched the house and destroyed property belonging to the family.
Ali Samoudi has worked for multiple international news organisations including CNN, Al-Jazeera and Reuters.
On 11 May 2022 Ali Samoudi was reporting near the entrance to Jenin refugee camp when Israeli forces opened fire shooting Ali in the back and killing Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
CNN reported that Israel Forces claimed that Ali Samoudi was “identified with the Islamic Jihad” faction and accused him of transferring funds to the group, but did not offer any evidence to support this.
Ali is one of the most well-known journalists in the occupied West Bank, He has worked with international news organizations for decades, both as a local producer and as a fixer. In his long career as a journalist he has never previously faced such an accusation, including when he became a witness to the high-profile assassination of his colleague, Abu Akleh.
The Israeli military said Ali Samoudi has been transferred to Israeli security forces “for further treatment”.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Ali Samoudi is the latest of at least 84 Palestinian journalists to be arrested by Israeli forces over the 18 months since October 2023.
NUJ member Katie Barlow, who worked with Ali Samoudi in 2003 for a documentary, said he was a respected local journalist who reported on the everyday Israeli army incursions into Jenin camp without ever taking a day off.
Ali was someone with whom it was recommended she work in Jenin. At this time he ran a newspaper and news agency in the city of Jenin.
A dedicated local journalist
Katie said: “Jenin is a very dangerous place to work as a foreign journalist; I worked there at the time the UN worker Ian Hook was shot dead by Israeli forces. It's one of the most difficult places in the West Bank to work and you need someone like Ali to take you into Jenin camp.
“Ali was very protective. He was worried for our safety, but also very grateful that we were there to document the violence that he saw every day, and he was very happy to share his knowledge.
“He was shot in the back on the day that Shireen Abu Akleh was killed. He has been shot numerous times before that. He’s never taken a day off because the violence of military occupation never stops.
“He's a dedicated local journalist who has brought a local story to an international audience, without fail reporting the bloody human rights abuses going on daily in his community. Basically, he's just a decent human being and an excellent journalist and it's simple as that.”
It should be no surprise that we are extremely concerned for the safety of our friend and colleague Ali Samoudi, in the light of at least 167 Palestinian journalists having been confirmed killed since Shireen Abu Akleh was assassinated in 2022. There has still been no justice for Shireen’s killing.
As journalists we must stand in solidarity when members of our profession are persecuted for just doing their job, no matter how unpopular their story-telling is with those in charge. Ali is – like all the other Palestinian journalists who have been killed and detained – being silenced.
The legal scholar Raphael Lemkin, who developed the concept of genocide, wrote in the 1930s that genocide is not just the mass killing of a population – but is also the destruction of that society’s poets’ priests, teachers, artists, doctors and, of course, journalists.
14 May 2025 It has emerged that Ali Samoudi is being held in the notorious Megiddo prison.
Today John McDonnell MP asked a question in the House of Commons about Ali's detention: video on Twitter here.
Release Ali Samoudi and other imprisoned colleagues! 01/08/25
Son of detained Palestinian journalist Ali Samoudi pleads for international help Turkish public TV TRT via youtube.com
Remembering Shireen Abu Akleh memorial June 2022