Israel’s military says it has uncovered thousands of hours of sickening footage showing Hamas interrogators torturing innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
The harrowing videos show male prisoners with bags over their heads, chained to the floor and ceiling in painful positions.
The men writhe in pain as they are beaten on the soles of their feet with sticks.
In one distressing clip, a hooded man appears to be screaming and protesting against his captor.
The horrific incidents appear to have been inadvertently filmed by CCTV cameras inside a Hamas military base in northern Gaza that was attacked by Israeli troops earlier this year.
The harrowing videos show male prisoners with bags over their heads, chained to the floor and ceiling in painful positions.
The men writhe in pain as they are beaten on the soles of their feet with sticks.
The images were said to have been discovered on computers seized from the abandoned compound within the Jabalia refugee camp. It is unclear why the men were being held.
But human rights experts have previously warned that innocent Palestinians have been kidnapped from their homes and tortured by Hamas thugs who have ruled Gaza with a rod of iron since 2007.
Gay men and adulterers are among those who have been tortured by Hamas, along with political opponents and anyone accused of collaborating with Israel.
A time stamp in the corner of the footage suggests the torture took place between 2018 and 2020.
Guards often appear calm and chat while the abuse unfolds.
An interrogator leans back in a chair, arms crossed behind his head, facing a chained prisoner hanging from the ceiling by his arms.
Another film shows a man, with a red sack over his head, chained so awkwardly that he can barely put one foot on the ground. Later, one of his captors appears to brutally strangle the man.
A senior Israeli military source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The IDF found this CCTV footage in March. It took us months to go through them all. It has not been possible to independently verify the videos, but human rights groups have long warned about Hamas abuses against civilians in Gaza. Amnesty International released a 44-page report detailing a brutal campaign of kidnappings, torture and murder by Hamas against its own people following the last war between Israel and Hamas in 2014.
Howidy, an accountant who later fled Gaza, said: “People outside Gaza call Hamas freedom fighters when they are killing innocent Palestinians for nothing.”
A Palestinian carries an injured child from a house that was hit by an Israeli attack in the Jabalia refugee camp.
Many were accused of collaborating with Israel. Hamas has also tortured and murdered gay men in Gaza, where homosexuality is illegal.
Hundreds of gay men risked their lives to cross the border into Israel or Egypt before the most recent conflict.
One of them, Abdul, previously told Israeli media how he lived in fear in Gaza after Hamas discovered he was gay. He was tortured repeatedly before fleeing to Egypt.
In a chilling account that matches the torture captured in footage found by the IDF, he told i24News: ‘They put me in a tiny room. They didn’t let me sleep or go to the bathroom inside. There was no food.
‘They would torture me so much. Sometimes they tied my feet and beat me with a stick. After that, every few years, I was arrested and tortured in the same way.
“They made me swear on the Koran that I will never be gay again.”
Last night, another Hamas torture victim, Hamza Howidy, 27, told The Mail on Sunday how he was detained for protesting against the regime in Gaza.
“They would torture you until you broke and say whatever they wanted,” he said. “I could hear my fellow protesters screaming in the next room.”
Gay men and adulterers are among those who have been tortured by Hamas, along with political opponents and anyone accused of collaborating with Israel. (Israeli army tanks take up positions in southern Israel, near the border with the Gaza Strip)
Displaced Palestinians flee Rafah with their belongings to safer areas in the southern Gaza Strip
Howidy, an accountant who later fled Gaza, said he believed he was detained in western Jabalia in 2019, but it is unknown if he appears in the footage.
He said: ‘Hamas controls everything. They confiscated my laptop and had problems with my conversations with my girlfriend.
“Collaborating with Israel would justify severe punishment and homosexuality would result in a death sentence.” Howidy said one man was detained for three years and tortured three times a week. “They inserted objects into it,” he added. ‘A man was shocked for two years before his innocence was finally discovered.
‘The first thing he did was shoot dead the Hamas official who reported him: his uncle.
‘You would never get a lawyer and your family would have no idea what happened to you. I was lucky because my family paid a price for me. I managed to leave for Europe across the Egyptian border in September last year, which cost a fortune, but my family was told that if I returned I would be a walking dead man. Luckily, I also got them safe passage.
He added: “You can’t know who is a Hamas snitch or not.”
‘A friend of mine was forced to divorce his wife when he got caught for something. There is currently a growing hatred towards Hamas, especially after the war, but since Hamas controls the media and people are afraid, we hardly hear about it.
‘People outside Gaza call Hamas freedom fighters when they are killing innocent Palestinians in vain. Hamas is holding the people of Gaza hostage.”
Relatives of Palestinians who lost their lives in Israeli attacks in Az-Zawayda district perform a funeral prayer
A doctor administers a polio vaccine to a Palestinian child at the Abdel Aziz Rantissi hospital in the Nasr district of Gaza City.
A former Israeli intelligence officer, known as Guy C, told this newspaper that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, killed by the IDF last month, was “obsessed with finding collaborators and held thousands against their will.”
He added: ‘They have been known to melt plastic on the skin and electrical cables on the body.
‘Some are electrocuted on high voltage poles or dragged with a chain from a vehicle until they die.
“Worse still, they don’t allow the families a proper burial and the bodies have a sign saying they were cooperating.”
Palestinian Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who now resides in the US and is a member of the Atlantic Council think tank, said: “Extreme torture has been a critical component of Hamas’ governance strategy to ensure that they deter people and instill fear in those who speak out.’