Hamas describes deaths of Palestinian detainees at Israeli military facilities as 'war crimes'

By Abdelsalam Fayez

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - The Palestinian group Hamas said Thursday that the deaths of Palestinians from Gaza held by the Israeli army at military facilities are "war crimes" that require an international probe.

In a statement, Hamas said that what Israeli media revealed on the deaths of 27 Palestinians while they were being held at Israeli military facilities is "further evidence of the scale of the crimes, violations and atrocities that Palestinian detainees are exposed to in occupation prisons."

The statement also said that such incidents require an international investigation by the international legal groups.

The Palestinian group urged the International Committee of the Red Cross to shoulder its legal and humanitarian responsibilities in checking the Palestinian detainees' arrest conditions "amid a deliberate Israeli blackout" of such information.

Earlier in the day, Israel’s Haaretz daily newspaper said 27 Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip had died at Israeli military facilities since last October.

The detainees lost their lives at the Sde Teiman and Anatot facilities or while being questioned in Israeli territory, it said.

According to a report by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) published Tuesday by The New York Times, Palestinian detainees released to Gaza testified that they were beaten, robbed, stripped, sexually assaulted and prevented from accessing doctors and lawyers.

Local authorities in Gaza estimate that Palestinians who have been arrested by Israeli forces in Gaza since Oct. 7 exceed 3,000. However, there are no exact figures on their numbers as Israel has not revealed any information about them so far.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, which Tel Aviv said killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 30,700 Palestinians have since been killed and over 72,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar