As criticism mounted over the mass detention of Palestinian men in Gaza, the government defended the roundup, saying it needed to arrest hundreds of men to determine whether any of them were linked to Hamas.
The arrests sparked outrage after photos and video detainees – tied up outside and stripped naked – went viral on social media on Thursday.
On Friday, an Israeli government spokesman, Eylon Levy, said Israeli forces arrested men in Jabaliya and Shajaiye, areas of northern Gaza that have been the scene of punitive airstrikes and heavy fighting in recent days. . Israel has described these areas as strongholds of Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since it took power there in 2007.
“We’re talking about military-age men who were found in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago,” Levy said. “These individuals will be questioned and we will determine who was indeed a Hamas terrorist and who was not. »
But critics said mass detentions and humiliating treatment could violate the laws of war and many people would be unable to evacuate because of poor health, disability or the expense of fleeing. .
Additionally, Hani Almadhoun, a Washington-based fundraiser for a group that raises money for the United Nations agency that helps Palestinians, said two of his detained relatives, aged 13 and 72, were not old enough to serve in the army.
Brian Finucane, an analyst at the International Crisis Group and former legal adviser to the U.S. State Department, said Friday that the treatment of the detainees appeared inconsistent with international law.
“The presumption that military-aged evils are combatants is troubling,” he said, and the fact that Israel ordered an evacuation “does not mean they can presumptively round up or arrest people who did not take it into account.
International law sets “a very high bar” for an occupying power to detain non-combatants, he said, and requires that they be treated humanely. “This prohibits attacks on personal dignity and humiliating and degrading treatment,” he added.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, told reporters Friday evening: “Over the past 48 hours, we have arrested more than 200 suspects, dozens of whom have been transferred” to Israel. , including Hamas commanders and fighters.
Israeli authorities, contacted on Friday, declined to comment on the treatment of the detainees. Speaking to CNN on Friday, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman, said the men in the video were stripped naked “to ensure they were not carrying explosives.”
Pictures and video shared by Israeli media Thursday showed men in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia, dressed only in underwear and lined up in rows, surrounded by soldiers and military vehicles. Location has been confirmed by an online researcher and independently verified by The Times.
Other images of undressed inmates kneeling in a sandbox were also published online. The Times compared these images with posts by an Israeli soldier on social media. It is not clear where they were taken, or whether the detainees were the same as those seen in the Beit Lahia footage.
In October, Israel dropped leaflets in Arabic over northern Gaza ordering people to evacuate the area and warning that anyone who remained “could be considered a partner of a terrorist organization.”
At the time, the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, said that designating civilians who were unwilling or unable to flee as complicit in terrorism was a threat of collective punishment and could constitute a ethnic cleansing.
Mr. Almadhoun, the Washington fundraiser, recognized his brother in one of the videos widely shared online. Israeli forces also arrested his brother-in-law, his 13-year-old nephew and his 72-year-old father at their home in Beit Lahia, he said in an interview.
His relatives “have nothing to do with anything,” said Mr. Almadhoun, director of philanthropy for UNRWA USA, which raises money for the United Nations agency for the Palestinians.
“My brother can’t even run two meters, let alone fight,” he said. “This is an attempt to humiliate them, to make their families see them undressed. The Israelis are in a state of vengeance.”
Mr. Almadhoun said his four detained relatives were released on Friday, which he said was due in part to his advocacy on their behalf to the media and the Biden administration.
On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed “concern regarding recent reports/images” of the detentions.
“We strongly emphasize the importance of treating all those detained with humanity and dignity, in accordance with international humanitarian law,” the group said in a statement.
Many of the men in the photos and video have not been heard from since their arrest, families and rights groups said. One of them is Diaa Al-Kahlout, correspondent for Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, a news site based in Britain.
Layal Haddad, the site’s editor-in-chief, said she and her colleagues learned of his detention from Mr. Al-Kahlout’s wife, and later recognized him in one of the men’s videos. in underwear.
She said Mr. Al-Kahlout had not evacuated because his eldest daughter, Nada, is partially paralyzed, and he wanted to continue covering the war in northern Gaza.
“He kept saying, ‘There is no place safe, the north and the south are not safe,’” Ms. Haddad said.
Christian Triebert And Chevaz Clarke reports contributed.
