A senior Hamas official on Friday accused Israeli forces of carrying out a "heinous crime against innocent civilians" after images circulated on social media of dozens of naked Palestinian men after being detained by Israeli soldiers in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza. In the same city, Palestinians taking refuge in the Al Awda hospital, which currently houses around 250 people including patients, relatives and staff, report being "completely under siege" and that a sniper shoots anyone who moves, according to They have told La Vanguardia.
Izzat al-Reshiq, exiled abroad, urged international human rights organizations to intervene to show the men what happened and help secure their release.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed concern about the images and stated that all detainees must be treated with humanity and dignity, in accordance with international humanitarian law.
Israeli television on Thursday showed images, which have been verified by the BBC, of what it said were alleged captured Hamas fighters, in their underwear and with their heads bowed, sitting on a street in Gaza City. "We are talking about individuals detained in Jabaliya and Shejaiya (in Gaza City), strongholds and centers of gravity of Hamas," Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said at a regular briefing in response to a question about the images. .
"We're talking about men of military age who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago." The Israeli military has been advising civilians to leave areas of Gaza where it plans to operate after launching its campaign to eliminate Hamas in the Palestinian enclave after the Islamist militant group's massacre in Israel on October 7.
One photo showed more than 20 men kneeling on the sidewalk or street, with Israeli soldiers looking on and dozens of shoes and sandals lying on the road. A similar number of men, also half-naked, were crammed into the back of a nearby truck.
Some Palestinians said they recognized relatives in images circulating on social media and denied they had links to Hamas or any other group. The al-Araby al-Jadeed news network also identified one of its journalists among those detained.
Reshiq said the men had been captured at a UN school in Gaza that was being used as a shelter after weeks of Israeli bombing that has displaced many Gazans.
Hamas held Israeli forces responsible for the lives and safety of the detained men, Reshiq added. "And we urge human rights organizations to immediately intervene to denounce this heinous crime against innocent civilians sheltered in a school, which had become a refuge due to Zionist aggression and massacres, and to press by all means to obtain his release."
London-based Arabic-language media outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed said one of those detained was its correspondent Diaa Kahlout. "Al-Araby Al-Jadeed strongly condemns the humiliating detention of his colleague Diaa al-Kahlout and other civilians," he said, urging the international community and rights groups to denounce the detention of journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists also called for her 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 that has been surrounded and besieged by Israeli tanks for weeks.
La Vanguardia has been able to speak with Mohammed, a man who has been taking refuge in the Al Awda hospital, located in Beit Lahia, for weeks, who denounced that the health center is "completely under siege." This social worker reports that the 250 people who are in the hospital have been under attack for more than four days by an Israeli sniper who has already killed two people. "The first day, a woman came to give birth and the sniper shot her mother-in-law and killed her. She is still on the street. Yesterday she killed a nurse through the window," he says.
Hani Almadhoun, a Palestinian-American living in Virginia, said he saw his relatives in one of the images and told Reuters that they were "innocent civilians with no ties to Hamas or any other faction."
"We firmly insist on the importance of treating all detainees with humanity and dignity, in accordance with international humanitarian law," Jessica Moussan, of the press service of the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Middle East, said in a statement.
Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission in London, said in X that the images evoked "some of the darkest passages in human history." Prominent Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi also said in
