Nimer Abu Ras\u2019 wrists are bruised and lacerated. His hands are swollen. <\/p>\n
He is one of hundreds of Palestinian men and boys who have been detained, many of them stripped and blindfolded, in recent weeks by Israeli forces conducting clearing operations in northern Gaza. Many of\u00a0those detained have already been identified as civilians by relatives and employers after images of the mass detentions circulated on social media. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey would tie your hands behind your back and drag you like a dog \u2013 plastic handcuff scars on your arms. Depending on the mood of one of them, they would come kick you with their boots,\u201d said 14-year-old Mahmoud Zendah, a recent wound marking the bridge of his nose. <\/p>\n
Zendah said an Israeli soldier had\u00a0kicked him in the face. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t do anything to him. He just decided to come and kick me,\u201d Zendah said. \u201cHe came to me and asked me, \u2018Are you Hamas?\u2019 I\u00a0told him, I don\u2019t know Hamas or the resistance. I\u2019m only a child that goes to school and back home. I eat, I play with my friends and go back home. I don\u2019t do anything else in life.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another 14-year-old, Ahmad Nimer Salman Abu Ras, was initially too afraid to even describe his detention. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m afraid,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m scared of the Israelis. I don\u2019t want them to do something to us.\u201d <\/p>\n
Like the others being treated at Al Aqsa Martyrs\u00a0Hospital in the central Gazan city of Deir Al-Balah, they were detained as Israeli forces moved through the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City. <\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly, we heard people screaming and soldiers yelling and bulldozers destroying the houses,\u201d Zendah\u2019s father, Nader, said. \u201c[The soldiers] opened the door of the house and separated women from men, they made us take off our pants and raise our shirts and lined us up against the wall\u2026Then they put us outside of the house and blindfolded us.\u201d <\/p>\n
They were then loaded into trucks and taken from one location to another. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey put us on the floor and put their feet on our heads, they would ask, \u2018Are you Hamas?\u2019 and beat [us]. When we wanted to sleep, we couldn\u2019t because it was so cold. And when we asked for something to wear or cover ourselves with, they would beat us,\u201d 16-year-old Mohammad Odeh said. <\/p>\n
Forty-year-old Mahmood Esleem, a diabetic, was weak when he arrived at the hospital. His son, Mohammad, who was detained with him, said his father was denied insulin during his detention. <\/p>\n
The next day, Esleem appeared to be in even worse shape \u2013 barely able to stand, complaining about pain in his foot and slipping in and out of consciousness, according to a cousin who was at his bedside. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll arrived physically and psychologically exhausted. They came to the hospital halfway walking on foot \u2013 ambulances met them halfway. We gave them the needed medical treatment,\u201d\u00a0Dr. Khalil Al Daqran, the Al Aqsa Martyrs\u00a0Hospital spokesman said. \u201cThere were signs of torture on their arms and signs of beating all over their bodies.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Israeli military said it was detaining and questioning individuals \u201csuspected of terrorist activity\u201d as part of its military operations in combat areas in northern Gaza and that \u201cindividuals who are found not to be taking part in terrorist activities are released.\u201d <\/p>\n
The IDF also defended its practice of ordering those it detains to undress, saying the practice is \u201cto ensure that they are not concealing explosive vests or other weaponry.\u201d <\/p>\n
Human rights groups have decried the photos and their wide circulation online after they emerged in Israeli media. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhether the detention is of a civilian or a combatant, the\u00a0law protects those in detention in custody against degrading and humiliating treatment and outrages upon personal dignity,\u201d said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch\u2019s Israel and Palestine Director. <\/p>\n
Israeli officials have since\u00a0claimed to the US that going forward they will give detainees clothes back \u201cimmediately\u201d if they conduct strip searches, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Wednesday, adding that Israeli officials told their US\u00a0counterparts that the photos should not have been taken or released. <\/p>\n
Civilians can be detained during armed conflict under international law, but only when\u00a0\u201cabsolutely necessary for imperative reasons of security,\u201d Shakir said, adding that Israel has violated those laws before. <\/p>\n\n
Nimer Abu Ras\u2019 wrists are bruised and lacerated. His hands are swollen. He is one of hundreds of Palestinian men and boys who have been detained, many of them stripped and blindfolded, in recent weeks by Israeli forces conducting clearing operations in northern Gaza. Many of\u00a0those detained have already been identified as civilians by relatives <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":12919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}