Gaza men share ordeal of being undressed as sadist Israelis took photos

The invading Israeli military has rounded up hundreds of Palestinians across the northern besieged Gaza, separating families and forcing men to strip to their underwear before trucking some to a detention camp on the beach, where they spent hours, in some cases days, subjected to hunger and cold, according to human rights activists, distraught relatives and released Palestinians themselves.

Palestinians incarcerated in the shattered town of Beit Lahiya, the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya and neighbourhoods of Gaza City said they were bound, blindfolded and bundled into the backs of trucks.

Some said they were taken to the camp at an undisclosed location, nearly naked and with little water.

"We were treated like cattle, they even wrote numbers on our hands," said Ibrahim Lubbad, a 30-year-old computer engineer arrested in Beit Lahiya on December 7 with a dozen other family members and held overnight.

"We could feel their hatred."

The roundups have laid bare an emerging tactic in Israel's ground invasion in Gaza, experts say, as the military seeks to solidify control in areas where it expelled Palestinians in the north and collect intelligence about Hamas.

In response to questions about mistreatment, the Israeli military claimed that detainees were "treated according to protocol" and were given enough food and water.

The army spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, said the men are questioned and then told to dress and that in cases where this didn't happen, the military would ensure it doesn't occur again.

Photos and videos showing Palestinian men kneeling in the streets, heads bowed, and hands bound behind their backs sparked outrage after spreading on social media and reminding of Nazi Germany era.

To Palestinians, it is a stinging indignity. Among those rounded up were boys as young as 12 and men as old as 70, and they included civilians who lived ordinary lives before the war, according to interviews with 15 families of detainees.

"My only crime is not having enough money to flee to the south," said Abu Adnan al Kahlout, an unemployed 45-year-old with diabetes and high blood pressure in Beit Lahiya.

He was detained on December 8 and released after several hours when soldiers saw he was too faint and nauseated to be tortured.

Hundreds seized

Israeli troops have seized at least 900 Palestinians in northern besieged Gaza, estimated Ramy Abdu, founder of the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which has worked to document the arrests.

Based on testimony it collected, the group presumes Israel is holding most detainees from Gaza at the Zikim military base just north of the enclave.

Palestinians hid with their families for days as Israel poured heavy machine-gun fire into Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya, the firefights with Hamas fighters stranding families in their homes without electricity, running water, fuel or communications and internet service.

"There are corpses all over the place, left out for three, four weeks because no one can reach them to bury them before the dogs eat them," said Raji Sourani, a lawyer with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza.

He said he saw dozens of dead bodies as he made his way from Gaza City to the southern border with Egypt last week.

Palestinians recounted Israeli soldiers going door to door with dogs, using loudspeakers to call on families to come outside.

Some released Palestinians described enduring humiliating stretches of near-nudity as Israeli troops took the photos that later went viral.

Some guessed they were driven several kilometres before being dumped in the cold sand.

Released Palestinians said they were exposed to the chill of night and repeatedly questioned about Hamas activities that most couldn't answer.

Israeli soldiers kicked sand in their faces and beat those who spoke out of turn.

Torture and 'death sentence'

Several Palestinians held for 24 hours or less said they had no food and were forced to share three 1.5-litre bottles with some 300 others.

Darwish al Ghabrawi, a 58-year-old principal at a UN school, fainted from dehydration. Mahmoud al Madhoun, a 33-year-old shopkeeper, said the only moment that gave him hope was when soldiers released his son, realising he was just 12.

Returning home brought its own horrors.

Israeli soldiers dropped Palestinians off after midnight without their clothes, phones or IDs near what appeared to be Gaza's northern border with Israel, those released said, ordering them to walk through a landscape of destruction, tanks stationed along the road and snipers perched on roofs.

"It was a death sentence," said Hassan Abu Shadkh, whose brothers, 43-year-old Ramadan and 18-year-old Bashar, and his 38-year-old cousin, Naseem Abu Shadkh, walked shoeless over jagged mounds of debris until their feet bled.

Naseem, a farmer in Beit Lahiya, was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper as they made their way to a UN school in Beit Lahiya, Abu Shadkh said.

His brothers were forced to leave their cousin’s body in the middle of the road.

Human rights groups say mass arrests should be investigated.

"Civilians must only be arrested for absolutely necessary and imperative reasons for security. It's a very high threshold," said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s regional director.