Hanegbi says circulating photos of unclothed Gazans surrendering ‘doesn’t serve anything’

Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of the National Security Council, says that there will not be further photos circulating online of Gazans surrendering to IDF troops in their underwear.

Such images have circulated online in recent days, sparking concerns about Israel’s arrest procedures.

“It doesn’t serve anything,” Hanegbi says of such images in an interview with Kan radio. “I think that you won’t be seeing images like this in the future.”

Hanegbi says that while requiring those surrendering in Gaza to strip to their underwear is necessary for security means, so “that we can see they don’t have explosive vests… and I hope that we see many such photos of people surrendering without a fight and giving up their weapons, they’ll be checked as needed, but after that will get dressed and that’s how they will be taken — they don’t need to be taken in the way we saw in the first photos.”

The army has not commented on the origin of the footage, which began finding its way online Thursday. But at least some of the photos and videos show evidence of having been taken from army positions, and some have speculated that they were intentionally leaked as part of a campaign to break the morale of Hamas’s fighters.