By means of Ethar Shalaby & Shereen YoussefBBC Arabic8 December 2023Updated 1 hour agoVideo caption, Watch: The BBC’s Heart East editor Jeremy Bowen on what the pictures showA 22-year-old Palestinian has instructed the BBC how he used to be detained with dozens of others by way of the Israel Protection Forces (IDF) in northern Gaza on Thursday.Pictures verified by way of the BBC displays a bunch of guys stripped to their undies, kneeling at the floor and being guarded by way of Israeli squaddies.The person says he used to be pressured to take a seat on the street for hours, handcuffed and blindfolded, earlier than being pushed away.An Israeli respectable mentioned the warriors had been looking for Hamas contributors.Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Top Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, instructed the BBC they had been on the lookout for the ones “answerable for the bloodbath of October 7″.The detainees had been taken by way of truck from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza to an unknown position, in keeping with the younger guy – who requested to stay nameless for his protection. When they arrived, they had been randomly decided on for wondering and interrogated about their courting with Hamas, he provides.One symbol – which has no longer but been verified by way of the BBC – displays males blindfolded, kneeling in what seems to be a big pit of bulldozed sand.The 22-year-old says where that he, his father, brother and 5 cousins had been taken to used to be sandy – and so they had been left there nearly bare however given a blanket at night time. After wondering, he says he used to be taken to some other location earlier than being instructed to move house, arriving at round 01:40 within the morning.”They launched all people, aside from my father and eldest cousin. My father works for UNRWA. I have no idea why they took him,” he mentioned.”We walked barefoot down the road at the hours of darkness, with the roads filled with rocks and glass.”UNRWA is the UN company that helps Palestinian refugees.Symbol caption, An image of the lads being pushed away in a truck, verified by way of the BBC, has been circulating on social mediaMr Regev mentioned IDF troops were accumulating other people to determine who used to be answerable for the Hamas assaults in Israel. They had been looking to resolve “whose identify and face suits with the pictures of other people beheading other people, or raping ladies and so on”, he mentioned.Mr Regev claimed it used to be conceivable that some had been UN employees, however steered that didn’t “routinely” imply they weren’t additionally Hamas contributors.He mentioned Hamas managed the employees’ union of UNRWA and that the gang had “activists in all types of organisations, that should not come as a wonder to any individual”.Juliette Touma, UNRWA director of communications, instructed the BBC that the company “has a scrutiny and screening procedure for all its workforce” which it stocks “with the host governments the place we paintings”.”For Gaza and the West Financial institution, UNRWA additionally stocks those lists with the federal government of Israel because the occupying energy,” she mentioned. UNRWA hasn’t ever gained a reaction from Israel to those lists, she added.A 2nd Palestinian, Mohammed Lubbad, who lives in Belgium, mentioned on Instagram that his brother Ibrahim used to be detained at the side of 10 different members of the family.Mr Lubbad instructed the BBC he had video-called his brother on WhatsApp two hours earlier than he used to be taken away.”He instructed me that our space and all of the village in Beit Lahia had been surrounded by way of Israeli forces,” he mentioned. “Later, I noticed the video posted on social media [of the truck]. I in an instant recognised my brother and in addition recognized a few of our neighbours.”Mr Lubbad mentioned all his family members had been in the end launched aside from for 2 cousins – Ahmed Lubbad, 35, a trainer and father-of-four, and Ayman Lubbad, a human rights activist and father-of-three.He mentioned his circle of relatives had been “blameless civilians and not using a army association”. Some of the detained males, Diaa al-Kahlout – who has no longer been launched but, in keeping with a colleague – is a correspondent for The New Arab, or Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, a London-based pan-Arab outlet.A few of the ones later launched instructed al-Kahlout’s circle of relatives that the journalist were transferred to Zikim army base in Israel, in keeping with Lamis Andoni of The New Arab.Symbol supply, Al-Araby Al-JadeedImage caption, Diaa al-Kahlout confronted “humiliating remedy”, his employer Al-Araby al-Jadeed says”We haven’t any concept about his destiny,” she instructed BBC Radio 4’s PM programme. “The footage and movies of those males are frightening. I am surprised.”Describing Mr al-Kahlout as very formidable, she mentioned he “all the time had a grin on his face, however like many Gazans, felt suffocated”.Ms Andoni mentioned her outlet used to be talking to Israeli forces during the UN. She mentioned the IDF’s recommendation the lads had been simply suspects and that forces had to examine them used to be “no longer a just right resolution”.Extra on Israel-Gaza struggle
