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Family members told Washington In the mail they saw families who had no ties to Hamas or armed groups were taken away by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint and have not heard anything from them since.
Mahmoud Almadhoun, his 13-year-old son, 72-year-old father and several other relatives were arrested on Thursday. That morning, Israeli men toured their family home in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza. The soldiers and many other men ordered them to leave.
In a widely circulated video, Almadhoun, 33, is seen in his underwear on the ground in a row of men. They stayed for hours, he told the Post on Saturday, before soldiers tied their hands and loaded them into trucks. They drove by burning cars to a beach somewhere between Beit Lahia and inside Israel. Almadhoun feared he would never return. “None of the people they arrested were Hamas or any kind of fighters,” he said.
Israeli forces say they are looking for Hamas members and people involved in the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, when fighters poured in from Gaza killing 1,200 people and abducting another 240. prisoner. Israel responded with a military strike that commanders say is aimed at destroying the terror group of a political and military group in Gaza. More than 17,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
But the Israeli authorities did not say how many people they detained, the legal reasons or where they are being detained, including whether in Gaza or Israel. The Israel Defense Forces submitted questions to the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service. The Shin Bet did not respond to requests for comment.
Yasser Alyan told the Post that he saw it again 20-year-old Ahmed Al-Lahman, who he described as a surrogate son, on November 20 as they walked south. The family fled Beit Lahia on Salah al-Din Road, the road Israel had told people to take.
What happened next followed what appeared to be a pattern. When the family arrived at the Netzarim checkpoint, the site of an ancient Israeli settlement, Lahman was summoned by soldiers. Alyan hasn’t seen him since.
The family waited for hours, Alyan said, until Israeli soldiers fired in their direction and warned them to leave. A family member who was detained with Lahman, but was released that day, told Alyan that They were made to remove their pants and pass in front of what appeared to be a facial recognition machine, he said.
Lahman, an amateur singer, “does not have any ties to any organization or politics, so we are shocked and surprised by his arrest,” said Alyan. He and his wife kept in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross. The organization said it had no comment.
The ICRC received more than 3,000 reports of missing Gazans between Oct. 7 and Nov. 29, spokeswoman Sarah Davies said. He could not say how many stops were involved.
Almadhoun’s video, along with images first shared by Israeli media, suggest the extent and conditions of certain bonds.
The Israeli media reported without mentioning the information that was shown by the videos of Hamas members. Friends and relatives of some of the demonstrators told the Post that their loved ones were taken from their homes and had no connection to Hamas or any armed group.
Israeli government spokeswoman Eylon Levy told the people on Friday in the photos there are “military veterans” found in “Hamas goods” and “the way civilians should have left.”
“Those people will be questioned and we will find out who really was a terrorist of Hamas and who was not,” he said.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Friday the military more than 200 suspects were arrested in the last 48 hours in Gaza and many people were released for questioning.
Hani Almadhoun, the humanitarian director in Washington at UNRWA USA, told the Post he was shocked when he saw his brother Mahmoud, 32, in the video.
Another brother was killed in an airstrike on November 24, before the start of a week of civil peace.
Mahmoud Almadhoun said on the beach that the soldiers cursed them, searched them with what appeared to be facial recognition devices and left them in their pants, exposed to the elements. When they ask for food or water, the soldiers kick or curse at them, he said.
Sometime after midnight, soldiers took him and other men near Beit Lahia and made them walk again without shoes.
Two different cousins never returned to college, Hani Almadhoun said.
The Gaza Ministry of Health said Israel has detained 31 medical workers – doctors, nurses and ambulance drivers – whose whereabouts are unknown. The most prominent detainee is Al-Shifa Hospital Director Mohamed Abu Salmiya, who the IDF said allowed Hamas to use the hospital’s underground bunkers as a base. The ministry and medical staff have denied the accusation.
Hana Herbst, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Prisons Authority, said she could not comment on specific cases.
International law allows military forces to detain combatants. But they can arrest or detain civilians “if absolutely necessary,” it said Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch director for Israel and Palestine. Civilians must be charged within 48 hours and be allowed to challenge their detention, among other safeguards, he said, or be released.
“You have to have a high bar if you’re going to keep the public out,” Shakir said. “It can’t just be, ‘Well, somebody can attack us at any time.'”
“The abusive and discriminatory practices of Israel’s detention during the many years of occupation have raised serious doubts as to whether the detention will meet those standards,” he said.
Israel’s Penal Code provides for the authority to detain Palestinians from Gaza under well-documented detention, a form of imprisonment without charge or trial that the authorities can impose. endless renewal, Shakir said.
The Israel Prisons Authority said this month 260 Gazans were detained under the law as of December 1. It is not clear which cases are being counted.
The Shin Bet is holding an unknown number of militants captured in Israel during the Hamas attack on October 7. Israeli forces in Gaza have since been captured. many people fought in his war. Hundreds of Gazan workers arrested in Israel were also imprisoned.
Jessica Montell, the executive director of the Israeli rights group Hamoked, said the organization has received more than 115 calls from family members of people detained at the Netzarim checkpoint. There are only two cases in which the man has been released.
“The question is, where are all the other people?” he said. “Where are they and what is their legal status?”
At least 16 female prisoners from Gaza were imprisoned in Israel. Since October 7, the Palestinian Authority has denied access to lawyers or the ICRC, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Association.
Teacher Khawla Salem, 40, said her 19-year-old daughter, Aseel, was one of those prisoners.
Salem, his wife and three children on November 22 left their home in the Jabalya refugee camp, where his 16-year-old son was killed in an attack, and headed to south to Khan Younis. As they approached the Netzarim checkpoint, Salem said, soldiers stopped the group and told them to go in front of what appeared to be a facial recognition machine. They were surrounded by gunmen and men.
Aseel and 9-year-old Mays were called steel wagon. The troopers, Mays told the Post, wanted his ID, asked about his education and taunted his sister. Aseel begged the soldiers to release Mes.
Mays was released after four hours. But he did not find any news about Aseel, who walks with injustice. While Salem was waiting, other women said she was detained and interrogated, searched and beaten.
Lama Khatour, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was detained at Damon prison in northern Israel after Gazan women arrived in brown uniforms and without hats. On the walls, he saw their names. One is Aseel.
Khatour, who was released last month in an exchange of Israeli detainees for Palestinian prisoners, said the women had little food and slept on the floor. Some said they were beaten. One was wet.
“There are no clear charges against them,” Khatour said. “They told us the goal was to gather as much information as possible about their families and their environment.”
Harb reported from London.