A senior Hamas official accused Israeli forces on Friday of carrying out a "heinous crime against innocent civilians" after images of detained Palestinian men stripped to their underwear in Gaza circulated on social media.
Captured and detained Palestinians sit on a street in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, as Israeli soldiers stand guard © Reuters
A senior Hamas official accused Israeli forces on Friday of carrying out a "heinous crime against innocent civilians" after images of detained Palestinian men stripped to their underwear in Gaza circulated on social media.
Izzat El-Reshiq, who is in exile abroad, urged international human rights organisations 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.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, whose country backs Hamas, also criticised Israel, accusing it on X of "barbarity in the treatment of innocent captives and citizens".
Israeli TV On Thursday showed footage, which Reuters has verified, 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 briefing when asked about the images.
"We are talking about military-age men who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago."
Reshiq said the detainees 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.
Hamas held Israeli forces responsible for the lives and safety of the detained men, Reshiq added.
Izzat El-Reshiq forgets to mention that the organization to which he belongs is responsible for the assassination and rape of 1,200 civilians in Israel on October 7th.
The same organization has kidnapped more than 200 civilians and subjected them to degrading treatments. Some hostages were killed by Izzat El-Reshiq's associates.
Israel said it carried out a strike in Syria against extremists who attacked members of the Druze community, following through on a promise to protect the minority group as sectarian violence spread near Damascus on Wednesday.
Wildfires due to extreme heat and winds broke out near Jerusalem on Wednesday, forcing the evacuation of communities and the closure of a main highway, as the country was observing Memorial Day and many Israelis visited gravesites.
A Turkish court has jailed pending trial 18 employees of the Istanbul municipality on corruption charges, state-owned Anadolu and other media reported on Wednesday, amid a crackdown on the opposition and the city's jailed mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
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