At least 100 Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces were stripped naked, blindfolded and forced to kneel on a street in northern Gaza, according to images and videos widely shared on social media and confirmed by the Israeli army .
The men were shown with their heads bowed while being guarded by Israeli troops in the undated video which first surfaced on Thursday and sparked condemnation.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Alan Fisher, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem, said Friday the images echoed the region’s history of undressed men being taken to unknown locations.
Many inmates have been recognized by community members and their families.
“Some say one was a student, another ran the local store and another had no connection to ‘terrorism’ as he lived in an apartment building. …A number of people identified a well-known local journalist among those arrested,” according to Fisher, who added that one man was with his two children and all three were arrested.
Shawan Jabarin, director of the human rights organization Al-Haq, said he was “shocked” to see images that reminded him of the treatment of detainees and prisoners of war during World War II.
“It is inhumane, it amounts to torture and, more than that, it is a war crime and a crime against humanity,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Israeli media reported that some images appeared to show suspected Hamas fighters who had surrendered to Israeli forces.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Imran Khan, reporting from Tel Aviv, said later Friday that some of the Palestinians detained in the incident had been released.
According to family members, one of the released detainees was a trader with no ties to Hamas, he said.
Regarding the Israeli response to the images, Khan said the army’s statement was unapologetic.
“It’s just a tactic they’re going to use.” They don’t care about criticism from the international community or human rights groups,” he added.
Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli army, said earlier: “During this fighting, those who remain in the area come out of the tunnels and some come out of the houses, we are investigating and verifying who is linked to Hamas and who is not.” It’s not, we stop and question them all.
He did not speak directly about the footage but said hundreds of suspects had been questioned so far and many had turned themselves in over the past 24 hours.
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Observatory said the men were “arbitrarily arrested” in the northern Gaza Strip after Israeli forces surrounded two shelters in the town of Beit Lahiya for several days.
They were taken to the Khalifa bin Zayed and New Aleppo schools, both affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the advocacy organization said rights in a press release.
Ahmed Bedier, president of the civic engagement group United Voices for America, called the images “horrific.”
“It is a way of humiliating, it is a psychological war, designed to break the Palestinian people and tell them that no place is safe, including shelters,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune .
Al-Araby Al-Jadeed newspaper, also known as The New Arab, said its correspondent Diaa al-Kahlout was among those arrested and taken to an unknown location.
He, his brothers and other relatives were among dozens of men arrested, The New Arab said in a statement on its website, adding that the detainees were forced to strip and searched before being taken to an unknown destination.
The media called on “the international community, defenders and monitoring bodies of journalists’ rights, as well as human rights organizations, to denounce this continued aggression committed by the Israeli occupation army against journalists since (October 7) and to make efforts to ensure that they are released from detention and protected. “.
Violation of international law
On Friday, the Palestinian armed group Hamas condemned the undressing of the men and called on international human rights organizations to investigate the incident.
“Undressing them in a humiliating manner is a blatant Zionist crime aimed at taking revenge on our defenseless civilians for the beatings suffered by its soldiers and officers at the hands of Palestinian resistance fighters,” said Izzat al-Risheq, a Hamas official. official, said in a statement.
“We hold the occupation responsible for their lives and safety, and we call on all human rights and humanitarian institutions and organizations to intervene,” the statement said.
Fisher said: “Of course it would be a violation of international law for prisoners of war to be treated in this way and for photos of them to be taken and then published. »
He added that what was even more worrying for international humanitarian groups and human rights organizations was that “there is absolutely no understanding of where these men have been taken or what may actually be happening.” happen to them.”
The images and videos were taken from the perspective of Israeli troops, and one clip shows dozens of men sitting cross-legged in rows of three or four, heads bowed, in the middle of a wide street.
One photo shows soldiers armed with assault rifles guarding dozens of kneeling men lined up along the wall of a building. Another photo shows detainees lined up in an empty field.
The latest video appears to show detainees crowded into the back of moving military trucks.
Israel said it had arrested and questioned hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank since the October 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel.
Following these attacks, Israel launched a massive air and ground offensive on the enclave.
More than 17,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 7, according to the enclave authorities.
Israel has said its death toll stands at around 1,150.