Israeli abuse of Palestinian prisoners

There have been many documented instances of Israeli abuse of captured or detained Palestinians over the years. Some of these have resulted in IDF investigations while the majority have not.

Recurring Abuses

There have been repeated reports of certain abuse patterns experienced by Palestinian prisoners in IDF custody.

Filming Prisoners for Gratification

A recurring motif in many of the reported incidents is IDF soldiers recording their mistreatment or debasement of Palestinian prisoners and spreading the footage among themselves and with the general Israeli population.

Forced Stripping

In numerous incidents that have been recorded by human rights organizations, some of which have been acknowledged by Israeli military officials, a recurring form of prisoner abuse is to force prisoners to strip all their clothing in public, strictly for purposes of humiliation and not for any security reason.

There have been many such incidences recorded, with perhaps the worst incident recorded on video being the October 2023 IDF Prisoner Abuse Video, which depicted both the forced stripping of Palestinian prisoners as well as their physical abuse. Reports from Palestine have also repeatedly accused Israel of releasing detained Palestinians — including those that were abducted or arrested and held indefinitely without charge — only after stripping them of all of their clothes (as well as refusing to return their personal belongings). One such incident was filmed taking place in the occupied West Bank, at or near Ofer Military Prison in the vicinity of Ramallah.

In one incident that received significant exposure, Israeli soldiers raided a home in Al-Khalil and forced five women of a family to strip naked in front of their children.

In the aftermath of the October 7, 2023 Hamas Attack on Israel, pictures were circulated showing Palestinian militants allegedly involved in the attack after they were captured by the IDF, arranged in a public square on their backs and sides, hog-tied, gagged, and stripped to their undershorts in a public square while surrounded by IDF soldiers. In a subsequent picture, they are shown completely stripped of their clothing (graphic content warning), their bodies bearing marks of injury or abuse.

Specific Incidents by Year

2023

December 7, 2023 round-up of civilians in northern Gaza

On or around the 7th of December, 2023, Israeli troops assaulting Beit Lahiya during the 2023 Israel war on Gaza rounded up approximately 70 teenage boys and men and proceeded to strip them of their clothes, tie up their hands behind their backs, and blindfold them, before arranging them on display in the street then carting them off to the desert. While Israel claimed these were members of Hamas and other militia fighters captured in Jabaliya, no proof has been given for that claim and the identities of at least some of the individuals have been confirmed to be civilians, with at least one being a member of the press. The civilians are claimed to have been abducted by IDF soldiers from a UN school where they were seeking shelter. According to the testimony of one of the detained individuals, they were detained until 12am before some were allowed to walk home, naked in the cold — conflicting with the IDF narrative that these were all militants under arrest. Israel later contradicted itself in a statement, now referring to the detainees – who's ages ranged from at least 13 to 72 years of age – only as over 200 "military-age men" from the neighborhoods of Jabaliya and Shajaiye rather than "surrendered Hamas terrorists," as they originally identified them to excuse their roundup. The illegally detained Palestinians also included at least one woman.

Israel later corroborated the witness testimony and admitted that it had let the majority of those detained go free, claiming that it believed 10-15% of those detained were "affiliated" with Hamas — a term that has come to mean anything from directly involved to being a neighbor or distant relative of a Hamas member The IDF further admitted to publishing the photos, intended to humiliate, as a psy-ops tactic, claiming the photos would "have a strong effect on the motivation of [Hamas]'s operatives who are still fighting." According to one Palestinian news organization, several of the freed detainees claimed that they were being used as human shields by IDF soldiers as they advanced into Jabaliya. Other news organizations quoted survivors as saying they were subjected to physical and psychological torture, including being bathed in buckets of urine and beat, after being stripped down. Other elderly prisoners with diabetes were prevented from taking their medication for days.

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At the same time as the photos above were published by members of the press embedded with the IDF and by IDF soldiers during the roundup of civilians in northern Gaza, other photos also began to circulate on social media showing hundreds of Palestinians rounded up and corralled into a pit or clearing by IDF soldiers while other IDF soldiers appear to be staging a photo of unknown nature off to the side.

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Compilation Video of Kidnapping, Murder, and Mutilation of Palestinians

In November 2023, a video was published compiling several videos from an Israeli Telegram channel, depicting the abduction, abuse, and murder of Palestinians as well as several montages of Israeli civilians mutilating and debasing the bodies of deceased Palestinians, who presumably escaped Gaza and died within Israeli territory on October 7th.

Leaked Video Showing Stripping and Physical Abuse

In late October 2023, a leaked video began circulating depicting IDF soldiers physically abusing Palestinian prisoners that had been stripped of their clothes, bound, and left naked on their stomachs and backs in the outdoors. In the video, IDF soldiers were seen physically abusing the Palestinian prisoners while they screamed in pain.

IDF TikTok Challenge

In 2023, the IDF TikTok Challenge went viral in Israel after IDF soldiers recorded themselves singing along to Israeli singer Meni Mamtera with two Palestinian prisoners handcuffed and blindfolded in the back of their car. It received national coverage and became a TikTok trend for Israeli citizens to mock the Palestinians by having their friends or children pretend to be captured Palestinians while they sing along to the tune.

To-do

• https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-soldiers-film-themselves-abusing-humiliating-west-bank-palestinians/
• https://twitter.com/kzxkzxkzxkzx/status/1719351372888387965