Hamas condemns Israel over images showing semi-naked Palestinian
prisoners
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[December 08, 2023]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) - A senior Hamas official accused Israeli forces on
Friday of carrying out a "heinous crime against innocent civilians"
after images of Palestinian men stripped to their underwear in Gaza
circulated on social media.
Izzat El-Reshiq, who is in exile abroad, urged international human
rights organizations to intervene to show what happened to the men and
help secure their release.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was
concerned by the images and that all detainees must be treated with
humanity and dignity in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Israeli TV showed footage on Thursday, which Reuters could not
independently verify, of what it said were captured Hamas fighters,
stripped to their underwear with heads bowed sitting in a Gaza City
street.
"We are talking about individuals who are apprehended in Jabalia and
Shejaiya (in Gaza city), Hamas strongholds and centres of gravity,"
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy told a regular briefing in
response to a question about the images.
"We are talking about military-age men who were discovered in areas that
civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago."
The Israeli military has been advising civilians to leave areas in Gaza
where it plans to operate after launching its campaign to eliminate
Hamas in the Palestinian enclave following the Islamist militant group's
Oct. 7 killing spree in Israel.
One photo showed more than 20 men kneeling on the pavement or in the
street, with Israeli soldiers looking on and dozens of shoes and sandals
abandoned in the road. A similar number of men, also semi-naked, were
crammed into the back of a truck nearby.
Some Palestinians said they recognized relatives in the images
circulating on social media and denied they had any links to Hamas or
any other group.
Reshiq said the men had been captured at a school in Gaza that was being
used as a shelter after weeks of Israeli bombardments that have
displaced many Gazans.
APPEAL TO HUMAN RIGHTS GROUPS
Hamas held Israeli forces responsible for the lives and safety of the
detained men, Reshiq added.
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Smoke rises over Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and
the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel,
December 8, 2023. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
"And we urge human rights organizations to immediately intervene to
expose this heinous crime against innocent civilians taking refuge
in a school, that had turned into a shelter because of Zionist
aggression and massacres, and to put pressure by all means to secure
their release."
The London-based Arabic language news outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed said
one of the men detained was its correspondent Diaa Kahlout. "Al-Araby
Al-Jadeed strongly condemns the humiliating arrest of colleague Diaa
Al-Kahlout and other civilians," it said, urging the international
community and rights groups to denounce the arrest of journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists also called for his release.
Some Palestinians identified the place where the men were captured
as the northeastern town of Beit Lahia, an area that Israel had
warned civilians to leave and has been encircled and besieged by
Israeli tanks for weeks.
Hani Almadhoun, a Palestinian American based in Virginia, said he
saw relatives in one image and told Reuters they were "innocent
civilians with no links to Hamas or any other faction".
"We strongly emphasize the importance of treating all those detained
with humanity and dignity, in accordance with international
humanitarian law," Jessica Moussan, ICRC Media Relations Advisor,
Middle East, said in a statement.
Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission in London, said on X
the images evoked "some of humanity’s darkest passages of history."
Prominent Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi said on X the
incident was "blatant attempt at the humiliation & degradation of
Palestinian men, abducted from their family homes, stripped &
displayed like war trophies".
(Additional reporting by Reuters reporters in Beirut and Jerusalem,
Writing by Timothy Heritage, Editing by)
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