A Palestinian journalist recently released from one year in Israeli jail, where he was held without charge, recounted the severe conditions he said prisoners undergo in a Thursday interview with CNN.

Ali Samoudi lost 130 pounds while in prison and was barely recognizable to family and friends after he was released on April 30.

Samoudi was held by Israel using a controversial legal tool called administrative detention, which allows authorities to indefinitely keep a suspect in custody without charge, based on covert intelligence information.

While some in administrative detention are eventually charged, others — including Samoudi — are not.

Defense Minister Israel Katz barred the use of the practice against Jewish suspects last year, and it is now only employed against some 4,000 Palestinians and a small number of Arab Israelis, leading to charges of discrimination by Israeli authorities.

Samoudi, in the CNN interview, said prisoners are given small rations of food each day.

Palestinian journalist Ali al-Samoudi was recently released from Israeli prison, where he was held for a year without charge and without a trial. He lost around half his body weight behind bars. “It was a real hell,” he tells @JDiamond1, in this heart-wrenching report. pic.twitter.com/WH0tqu4lyn — Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) May 8, 2026

Palestinian journalist Ali al-Samoudi was recently released from Israeli prison, where he was held for a year without charge and without a trial. He lost around half his body weight behind bars. “It was a real hell,” he tells @JDiamond1, in this heart-wrenching report. pic.twitter.com/WH0tqu4lyn

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) May 8, 2026

He said breakfast consisted of one spoon of labneh and a quarter spoon of jam; lunch is four spoons of rice, two slices of cucumber and one spoon of white beans; while dinner is two spoons of hummus, one spoon of tahini and a hard-boiled egg.

Samoudi did not see how much weight he lost until his release, saying he was banned from seeing a mirror. “I felt something dreadful. My situation was difficult, and I understood that, but I did not imagine it was to this extent,” he said.

A recent report from Israel’s own Public Defender’s Office determined that Palestinian security detainees held in Israeli........

© The Times of Israel