Israeli forces have been publishing degrading photographs and videos of detained Palestinians, including children, a form of inhumane treatment and an outrage on their personal dignity that amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today.
In many cases, detainees were stripped of their clothing, sometimes fully, then photographed or filmed, with the images published by Israeli soldiers, media outlets, or activists. Forced nudity followed by capturing and sharing sexualized images on social media is a form of sexual violence and also a war crime.
"Israeli authorities have for months turned a blind eye as members of their military published dehumanizing fully or seminude images and videos of Palestinians in their custody," said Balkees Jarrah, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Senior officials and military commanders can be held criminally responsible for ordering these crimes, or for failing to prevent or punish them, including at the International Criminal Court."
Israeli military officials have publicly denounced some of their members for publishing images of the detainees, but as far as Human Rights Watch has been able to determine, the government has not publicly condemned the underlying treatment of Palestinian detainees depicted in the images. Judicial authorities have not announced any prosecutions for these crimes. On July 15, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Public Diplomacy Office of the Israeli military but has not received a response.
Since October, Israeli forces have reportedly detained thousands of Palestinians from Gaza at Sde Teiman, an army base in southern Israel, where they have been reportedly ill-treated and tortured, and where at least 36 died in custody, according to media reports. As of July, 124 Palestinians remained at Sde Teiman, according to the Times of Israel, despite the Israeli attorney general calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to transfer detainees out of the facility due to the reports of abuse and deaths in custody.
Human Rights Watch analyzed 37 of the posts depicting captured Palestinians, predominantly men and boys in Gaza and the West Bank, often stripped to their underwear and in some cases completely naked, handcuffed, blindfolded, and injured. Some posts included demeaning and humiliating captions by Israeli soldiers or journalists. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube have removed some of these posts.
Between October 25 and December 28, one Israeli soldier, who according to his social media holds United States citizenship, published at least seven photos and videos of Palestinian men detained by his unit in the West Bank. In the images, the clothed detainees are handcuffed, many of them are blindfolded, and some have Israeli flags placed on them.
In two videos, published on October 28 and 29, the soldier places US dollar bills on the knees of two handcuffed, blindfolded, and squatting men, as a "blessing" while he mocks them and asks them to repeat phrases in Hebrew. The soldier also posted degrading captions, such as "trolling Hamas," to accompany some of the published images.
In another case, an Israeli soldier in Gaza published a photo on Facebook on December 8, showing at least 22 detained males in a single file, all stripped to their underwear, some of them blindfolded. At least two detainees appear to be children. The caption says: "As part of our mission we kept Hamas terrorists under arrest. We'll settle for this picture, there are pictures not for publication …"
Another image posted on Instagram, by an Israeli soldier, who according to media reports holds US citizenship, shows what appears to be a photograph of himself standing in front of at least six men with their backs to the camera, stripped to their underwear and kneeling on the ground while handcuffed and blindfolded, with their arms above their head. The caption of the now deleted photo says: "Mom I think I freed palestine" [sic].
Two separate investigations by the BBC on the conduct of Israeli soldiers, in February in Gaza, and in May in the West Bank, found that Israeli soldiers uploaded to social media platforms dozens of images and videos intended to humiliate Palestinians, including images of detainees who had been stripped to their underwear and others who had been draped in Israeli flags.
The Israeli military told the BBC that it had terminated the service of one reservist and that this conduct did not represent its values. In a response to another BBC investigation, the Israeli military said it had instructed soldiers "to avoid uploading footage of operational activities to social media networks," and while it did not condemn any specific acts, it said that soldiers were "disciplined and even suspended from reserve duty" in the event of "unacceptable behavior." The military spokesperson, Daniel Hagari, and national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi
