Around 7 December 2023, during Israeli military ground operations in northern Gaza, Israeli forces detained large groups (more than hundreds) of Palestinian men and boys in areas such as Beit Lahiya, Jabaliya, and Gaza City. Many were forced to strip to their underwear, blindfolded, and tied, and were filmed or photographed while sitting or kneeling in the street with their hands behind their heads.

Images and videos circulated widely online and in international media, showing dozens of detainees guarded by Israeli soldiers. Some detainees were also loaded onto military trucks and taken to detention sites for interrogation.

Witnesses and released detainees said the men were held for hours or days with minimal food or water, sometimes in cold conditions, while soldiers attempted to determine whether they were fighters or civilians.

Israeli authorities initially described the scene as the surrender of suspected militants, but relatives, journalists and human-rights organizations identified some of the detainees as civilians, including at least one journalist, Diaa Kahlout, reporter for Qatari media Al Arabi Al Jadeed. The news organisation said Kahlout had been rounded up along with his brothers, relatives and other civilians at the market street in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, and then “were forced to strip off their clothes and searched and humiliated before they were taken to an unknown location”. The Committee to Protect Journalists called for his release as Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission in London, said on X the images evoked “some of humanity’s darkest passages of history”.

Several days later, around December 13, while Diaa Kahlout were not reappared, his home in Beit Lahia has been set on fire by Israeli forces, as his family revealed to The New Arab's Arabic. Israeli forces also burned down apartments belonging to two of his brothers in Gaza. He was finally released withut charge on January 9 2024, after 33 days of torture in Israeli detention camps, where he lost 44 pounds (20 kilos). He recounted his abduction and detention in an interview for El Pais.

Hani Almadhoun, who works at a US charity which raises funds for the UN’s Palestine relief agency, UNRWA, said he recognised his brother, Mahmoud, a shopkeeper, in one video: “I recognised him immediately … and recognised the area as the same area they had been sheltering.” His sister identified his 27-year-old nephew Abood packed in with a bunch of men in the back of a military truck. Almadhoun’s father and 13-year-old nephew, Omar, were also detained. All four were later released, said Hani, who added that none of them had links to militant groups.

Location of the footages:

Reports differ on where the initial images were filmed. An Israeli spokesperson said they were taken near Jabaliya and Shuja’iya, while Palestinians said they were from Beit Lahiya, claiming the men had been detained at two UN schools used as shelters.

In one widely shared photo, dozens of men in their underwear are seen kneeling, many blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs, while Israeli soldiers stand over them.

One photo shows soldiers with assault rifles guarding dozens of men kneeling in a line alongside the wall of a building. Another photo shows detainees being lined up in an empty field.

The last video appears to show detainees packed into the back of moving army trucks.

Human-rights reporting:

Organizations such as Human Rights Watch reported that detainees in Gaza were sometimes stripped, photographed or filmed while semi-nude, calling such treatment degrading and potentially a violation of international law.

Around December 13, other pictures surfaces leakes by IDF soldiers, showing Israeli forces detaining hundreds of Palestinians in an open-air pit in northern Gaza, violating the Geneva Convention. The photo, posted on Channel 12 by security correspondent Nir Dvori, shows men in dark clothing inside a red-dirt berm, with some standing under a bright light and soldiers nearby.

The location, confirmed by X/Twitter user fdov21, is Beit Lahia, near Gaza University, at coordinates 31.541788, 34.505311. Satellite images match a white-roofed warehouse now partially destroyed. One detainee has been identified as Dr. Khalid Hamoda, a peaceful surgeon.