IDF publishes footage of Hamas torturing Palestinian detainees in Gaza

The Israel Defense Forces says that troops operating in the Gaza Strip have uncovered extensive CCTV footage of Hamas operatives torturing Palestinian civilians.

It says that the footage, which comes from 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.”

“The videos, which were in the possession of Hamas’s security apparatus, document Hamas activities at Outpost 17 in the Gaza Strip, where brutal interrogations of civilians suspected of opposing Hamas are conducted,” the military says.

Outpost 17 is a former Hamas base in Jabalia, northern Gaza.

In one clip, male detainees are 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.

In other snippets of footage, the Hamas operatives charged with torturing the detainees talk among themselves and do paperwork while a detainee stands balancing in front of them, a sack covering his face and both hands and one leg chained to the ceiling.

The material was given by the IDF to the UK’s Daily Mail before the IDF published it.

Hamza Howidy, 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.”

The Hamas terror group has long been accused of detaining and torturing civilians in the Gaza Strip, often accusing them of collaborating with Israel.

In 2022, the UN Watch Lobby found that human rights activists, women, LGBTQ people and political opponents were regularly subjected to brutal punishment.