UPDATE: Israeli army gather Palestinian civilians in Gaza after forcing them to take off their clothes

ADDS STATEMENT BY HAMAS

By Anadolu staff

ISTANBUL (AA) - The Israeli army gathered dozens of Palestinian civilians in a playground in northern Gaza City after forcing them to take off their clothes.

In a video shared on social media late Monday, the civilians, including children and the elderly, are seen being held by the Israeli army in a playground after being stripped down to their underwear.

The video also showed Israeli tanks' barrels pointing at Palestinians in their underwear.

The fate of those Palestinians is unknown, as the Israeli army has not yet commented on the video.

In response, the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas, condemned the incident and said: ''The Israeli occupation soldiers filming dozens of Palestinian civilians in Gaza after arresting and stripping them down in cold weather constitutes a war crime.

It urged human rights groups to ''document this crime, which is contrary to the most basic human rights," calling on them to "monitor the conditions of civilians held by the army in undisclosed locations, with unknown fates or health conditions.''

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 20,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 54,536 others, according to local health authorities.

On Nov. 10, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman revised the official death toll of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, lowering the figure to around 1,200 people, and since then, Tel Aviv has not provided any additional information about the casualties.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with half of the coastal territory's housing damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million people displaced within the densely populated enclave amid acute shortages of food and clean water.

*Updated by Mohammad Sio