Israeli authorities have released Palestinian journalist Abed Abu Shehadeh after holding him for five days without charge, following his arrest over a podcast interview with exiled Palestinian intellectual Azmi Bishara.

Abu Shehadeh, a podcast host with the Arab48 news platform from Jaffa, was freed on Sunday, 8 November, five days after Israeli police and the Shin Bet intelligence service arrested him at his home. No charges were filed against him, The Jerusalem Post reported.

He had been detained on the night of 3 November, when officers raided his home in Jaffa. His family said about 15 security personnel took part in the raid. Police held him on suspicion of contact with a foreign agent, a suspicion his defence team says rested on a single interview: a conversation he recorded in Doha with Bishara, a former member of Israel's parliament, for his Arab48 podcast Al-Midan.

The legal rights group Adalah, which is part of his defence team, said his interrogation and detention concerned that one interview. At a hearing on 4 November, the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court kept him in custody until Sunday, 8 November, after police asked for an eight-day extension. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, a police representative at the hearing first described him as a journalist, then after a recess called him a political adviser instead.

He spent the five days in a Shin Bet facility in Petah Tikva, on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. His release came after police and the Shin Bet decided not to seek a further extension of his detention, Haaretz reported, and a second remand hearing scheduled for Sunday morning was cancelled. He was freed without appearing in court.

Speaking after his release, Abu Shehadeh described his detention as wrongful and completely baseless. He told Al Jazeera it was part of political measures intended not only for him but to intimidate Arab society as a whole. Residents, activists and civil society representatives welcomed him home at the Jaffa Arab Affairs Association, where he urged solidarity against political pressure on journalists and activists.

"The attack on me is not an isolated event," he told Anadolu Agency. "This attack is part of political pressure on activists, journalists, and anyone who doesn't fit the mainstream narrative." Addressing the crowd in Jaffa, he said Palestinians would not yield to fear, adding: "All we want is justice, for no one to be seen as superior to another."

His case had drawn attention abroad before his release. On 6 November, three newly elected Jewish members of the United States Congress, Brad Lander, Daniel Biss and Scott Wiener, wrote to urge Israel to free him. "No one should be detained for journalism, or held on evidence they cannot see," the letter said, according to The Jerusalem Post.

The arrest was not the only one of journalists in the same week. Israeli soldiers arrested Samer Khuwaira, a presenter with Radio Hawa, at his home in Nablus on 2 November, and his lawyer told the Committee to Protect Journalists he would likely face administrative detention without any charges. The isolation of Bushra al-Tawil, a journalist held under administrative detention since February, was also renewed for another month.

Neither the police nor the Shin Bet has said publicly whether the investigation into Abu Shehadeh is formally closed, leaving the file open over him even though he walked free without charge.