Chilly, virtually bare and surrounded by Israeli troopers with M16 assault rifles, Ayman Lubbad knelt amongst dozens of Palestinian males and boys who had simply been forced from their houses in northern Gaza.
It was early December and photographs and videos taken at the time confirmed him and different detainees on the street, carrying solely underwear and lined up in rows, surrounded by Israeli forces. In a single video, a soldier yelled at them over a megaphone: “We’re occupying all of Gaza. Is that what you wished? You need Hamas with you? Don’t inform me you’re not Hamas.”
The detainees, some barefoot with their fingers on their heads, shouted objections. “I’m a day laborer,” one man shouted.
“Shut up,” the soldier yelled again.
Palestinian detainees from Gaza have been stripped, crushed, interrogated and held incommunicado over the previous three months, in accordance with accounts by practically a dozen of the detainees or their relations interviewed by The New York Occasions. Organizations representing Palestinian prisoners and detainees gave related accounts in a report, accusing Israel of each indiscriminate detention of civilians and demeaning remedy of detainees.
Israeli forces who invaded Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led assault have detained males, girls and kids by the 1000’s.
Some had been ordered out of their homes and seized whereas others had been taken as they fled their neighborhoods on foot with their households, making an attempt to succeed in safer areas after the Israeli authorities ordered them to go away.
Photographs taken by Gaza journalists have proven newly launched detainees being handled in hospitals, the pores and skin round their wrists worn down with deep, contaminated cuts from the tight restraints Israeli forces saved on them, typically for weeks at a time.
The United Nations human rights workplace said last week that Israel’s remedy of Gazan detainees would possibly quantity to torture. It estimated that 1000’s had been detained and held in “horrific” situations earlier than being launched, typically with no garments on, solely diapers.
In a press release in response to questions from The Occasions, the Israeli navy stated it detains folks suspected of involvement in terrorist exercise and releases those that are cleared. It stated the Israeli authorities had been treating detainees in accordance with worldwide regulation and defended forcing males and boys to strip, saying this was to “be sure that they aren’t concealing explosive vests or different weaponry.”
“Detainees are given again their garments when it’s potential,” the navy added.
Human rights defenders say Israel’s detention and demeaning remedy of Palestinians in Gaza might violate worldwide legal guidelines of battle.
“Because the starting of the Israeli bombardment and floor invasion in Gaza, the Israeli Military arrested a whole bunch of Palestinians in a barbaric and unprecedented method and has revealed photos and movies displaying the inhumane remedy of detainees,” stated a current report by a number of Palestinian rights teams, together with the Palestinian Prisoners’ Fee and Addameer.
“To date, Israel has hid the destiny of detainees from Gaza, has not disclosed their numbers, and prevented legal professionals and the Purple Cross from visiting detainees,” the report added.
A spokesman for the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross, Hisham Mhanna, stated his group obtained every day experiences from households in Gaza about detained members of the family. The group is engaged on some 4,000 circumstances of Palestinians from Gaza who had vanished, practically half believed to be detained by the Israeli navy, he stated.
The group has been in search of details about the situations and whereabouts of detainees and pushing for visits. However solely in a handful of circumstances has it even obtained proof of life, Mr. Mhanna stated.
Brian Finucane, an analyst on the analysis group Worldwide Disaster Group and a former authorized adviser to the State Division, stated worldwide regulation set “a very high bar” to detain noncombatants and required that they be handled humanely.
During the first month of the war, Israel warned those that didn’t flee areas underneath evacuation orders that they “could also be thought-about a companion in a terrorist group.” Final month, an Israeli authorities spokesman, Eylon Levy, stated Israeli forces had been detaining “military-age males” in these areas.
Hamas was estimated to have 20,000 to 40,000 fighters earlier than the battle, in accordance with American and different Western analysts, amongst a inhabitants of greater than two million folks in Gaza.
“The presumption that military-aged males are combatants is troubling,” Mr. Finucane stated.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations particular rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said in October that designating civilians who didn’t evacuate as accomplices to terrorism was not solely a menace of collective punishment, however might represent ethnic cleaning.
Pictures and videos taken by Israeli troopers and Israeli journalists embedded with the navy have proven Palestinians with fingers certain behind their backs, typically blindfolded and in underwear, kneeling outdoor in winter.
In one video taken at a stadium in Gaza Metropolis, dozens of males carrying solely underwear are lined up or marched throughout the sphere surrounded by Israeli troopers. Among the males had been gray-haired and a number of other had been younger boys.
Girls and women had been additionally current, however they remained clothed.
One detainee was Hadeel al-Dahdouh, 22, who appeared in one other picture revealed final month at the back of truck mattress full of virtually bare males. Within the picture, her eyes had been coated by a white blindfold and her head scarf had been eliminated.
She and her husband, Rushdi al-Thatha, each from Gaza Metropolis within the north, had been taken collectively on Dec. 5, Mr. al-Thatha, 31, stated.
“They’d hit us on our heads with their weapons,” stated Mr. al-Thatha, one among a lot of detainees who described being crushed by Israeli troopers. “They’d hit my spouse like they hit me,” he stated. “They’d yell ‘Shut up!’ and curse at her.”
Mr. al-Thatha stated he was launched after 25 days. Ms. al-Dahdouh continues to be lacking.
On the day when Mr. Lubbad was detained, Dec. 7, he was at his mother and father’ home together with his spouse, he stated. She had given start weeks earlier to their third little one. They might hear gunfire and tanks within the streets after which an Israeli soldier yelled on a megaphone for all males to come back out and give up.
As quickly as he walked out, arms up, he stated, he was confronted by a soldier who ordered him to kneel and strip. Within the December chill, he was saved on his knees within the again row of a line of Palestinian males and a few boys — all of their underwear, some barefoot.
Mr. Lubbad, himself a human rights employee with the Palestinian Middle for Human Rights, stated his detention lasted every week. Within the first moments, he stated, he instructed himself he would do regardless of the troopers ordered.
“We didn’t know what awaits us,” he stated.
His fingers had been tied with rope that instantly started digging into his pores and skin, he stated. The detainees had been compelled into vans, blindfolded and fingers restrained, nonetheless of their underwear, as troopers hit them, Mr. Lubbad stated.
They had been then pushed for hours into Israel.
Solely once they arrived at a jail within the southern Israeli metropolis of Be’er Sheva had been they given garments — grey tracksuits. Every particular person was given a quantity on a blue tag and guards known as them by their numbers, not names.
Mr. Lubbad was held in a big barrack for 3 days. From 5 a.m. to midnight, all the dozens of detainees had been compelled to sit down on their knees ready he described as agonizing. Anybody who tried to shift can be punished, Mr. Lubbad stated.
He was not interrogated till days later, he stated, after being taken to a different detention facility in Jerusalem.
The interrogator requested him the place he was on Oct. 7 and whether or not he had any info on members of Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, or Islamic Jihad, a smaller armed faction, he stated. He was requested about tunnels and Hamas positions.
When he repeatedly answered that he didn’t know something and spent a lot of his time both at work or at house, the interrogator grew indignant and hit him underneath his eye, he stated, then put his blindfold again — tying it painfully tight.
He was detained for a number of extra days, however not interrogated once more.
Early on Dec. 14, Mr. Lubbad stated, he was amongst busloads of detainees pushed to Gaza’s southern border and instructed to begin strolling.
A number of different detainees gave related accounts.
Majdi al-Darini, a 50-year-old father of 4 and retired civil servant, stated he was held for 40 days together with his fingers restrained practically the whole time. The restraints lower into his wrists, leaving wounds that finally turned contaminated. A video of Mr. al-Darini after he was launched exhibits scabs round his wrists.
“All of the whereas, your fingers are tied and your eyes are blindfolded and you’re in your knees,” he stated. “And also you’re not allowed to maneuver proper or left.”
He stated he was detained in mid-November as he and his household had been strolling south, after leaving their houses in northern Gaza in response to an evacuation order.
“They handled us like animals,” he stated. “They’d hit us with sticks and hurl curses at us.”
Mr. al-Thatha, the person who was detained together with his spouse, stated that 25 days into his ordeal, a jail guard got here to his barracks and requested him: “‘Are you able to run?’”
He didn’t perceive the query.
Hours later at about 2 a.m., he stated, his title was known as and he was placed on a bus to the Kerem Shalom border crossing from Israel into Gaza. As he acquired off the bus, he stated, a soldier warned them that there was a sniper watching and ordered them to run for 10 minutes.
“We ran for 10 minutes with out turning our heads,” he stated.
Ameera Harouda, Hiba Yazbek and Nick Cumming-Bruce contributed reporting.