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Human Rights Voices
While the UN devotes its human rights operations to the demonization of the democratic state of Israel above all others and condemns the United States more often than the vast majority of non-democracies around the world, the voices of real victims around the world must be heard.
U.N. Obsession with Condemning
Israel Instead
A still image taken from CCTV footage and released by the IDF on November 10, 2024 shows a Palestinian detainee chained by his feet to the ceiling by a Hamas operative in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority/Gaza, November 10, 2024
Footage of Hamas torturing Palestinian detainees in Gaza revealed
Original source
The Israel Defense Forces said Sunday that troops operating in the Gaza Strip uncovered years’ worth of CCTV footage of Hamas operatives torturing Palestinian civilians, and released some clips that depicted harrowing abuse.
The military said that the footage, captured over a two-year period in 2018-2020, exposes “Hamas’s brutal methods for interrogating civilians, violating human rights and systematically oppressing residents suspected of opposing the organization’s rule.”
It said the footage showed activities at a Hamas facility where “brutal interrogations” were carried out.
The British Daily Mail tabloid, which published a report on the footage before the IDF released it, said the footage was found on a computer in Jabalia, in northern Gaza, in March.
A senior, unnamed Israeli military source told the newspaper that it took “months” to go through all of the footage. The video published by the IDF, which was a compilation of some of the material, ran for 45 minutes. The Times of Israel has chosen not to publish any of the videos.
In many of the scenes, detainees were seen being forced or bound into stressful positions that apply painful pressure to the body or limbs. Others were shown being beaten on the soles of their feet.
In one clip, male detainees were seen chained to the ceiling by their feet with sacks over their heads as a Hamas operative beats the soles of their feet with a stick.
Other snippets of footage showed Hamas operatives talking among themselves and doing paperwork while a detainee stood balancing in front of them with a sack over his face and with both hands and one leg chained to the ceiling.
Clips showed detainees with their arms bound behind their backs and then chained to the ceiling, forcing their limbs up at an unnatural angle.
It was unclear why the men had been detained by Hamas, the Mail reported, but the terror group has long been accused of arresting and torturing civilians in the Gaza Strip, accusing many of collaborating with Israel.
A former Israeli intelligence officer, who was identified only as Guy C., told the newspaper that Hamas “has been known to melt plastic over skin, electric cables on their body.”
“Some are electrocuted on electricity pylons or dragged on a chain from a vehicle until they die,” he said and described slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as “obsessed with finding collaborators and held thousands against their will.”
Sinwar was killed by the IDF last month during its ongoing military offensive against Hamas, in response to the massive cross-border attack on Israel that the terror group led on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Terrorists also abducted 251 people as hostages to Gaza.
Before his eventual release in a prisoner exchange deal, Sinwar was imprisoned by Israel in the 1980s to four life terms for offenses that included the killing of two Israeli soldiers and 12 suspected collaborators, a role that earned him the nickname “The Butcher of Khan Younis.”
Hamza Howidy, 27, who was arrested and tortured by Hamas before later fleeing Gaza, told the Mail that the terror operatives “would torture you until you broke and say whatever it is they wanted.”
Howidy, who was apparently held during the period covered by the clips though it was unknown if he appears in any of them, said he could hear people being tortured in other rooms of the building where he was held. He was released after his family paid for his freedom and they later were able to leave Gaza for Europe.
“There is a growing hatred towards Hamas now, especially after the war, but because Hamas controls the media and people are afraid, we hardly hear of it,” Howidy said. “People outside of Gaza call Hamas freedom fighters when they are killing innocent Palestinians for nothing. Hamas is holding the people of Gaza hostage.”
In 2022, the UN Watch Lobby found that human rights activists, women, LGBTQ people, and political opponents were regularly subjected to brutal punishment.
The same year, Human Rights Watch reported that Palestinian authorities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip systematically torture critics in detention, a practice that could amount to crimes against humanity.
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