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Dozens of Hamas terrorists surrendered to Israeli forces Thursday in northern Gaza where IDF soldiers made the militants disrobe their uniforms and strip down to their underwear, according to reports.
The group of terrorists was “arrested and interrogated” after they turned themselves in after being pushed back by the advancing Israel Defense Forces amid intense fighting near Jabaliya, the Times of Israel reports.
It was estimated that more than a hundred Hamas fighters turned themselves in, the largest group to surrender to the IDF since Israel began its incursion into the Palestinian enclave.
Images of the surrender featured dozens of men sitting in rows with their hands over their heads. Many of the men were without their battle fatigues as the IDF troops lined up others to proceed farther down the closed-off road.
In one clip, the Hamas members could be seen in the back of an Israeli military vehicle.
Israel’s Kan News, however, reported that the group of men were detained before the IDF could verify whether they were all in fact members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari confirmed the arrests on Thursday and said the men were taken into custody in “centers of gravity” for the terrorist group.
“Whoever is left in those areas, they come out from tunnel shafts, and some from buildings, and we investigate who is linked to Hamas, and who isn’t. We arrest them all and interrogate them,” Hagari said during a news conference.
A former Israeli Intelligence Official told i24news that Israeli intelligence would process and interrogate the detainees to determine their roles in the terror group.
“They will all be questioned, even though a lot of them may not know much and are very low levels in the Hamas organization,” Dr. David Shimoni told the outlet. “The ones who know more will be separated and further interrogated as to where the hostages are.”
A Palestinian man who lives in the US told The Washington Post that his 32-year-old brother, Mahmoud Almadhoun was in the video clip.
“This is just to humiliate,” Hani Almadhoun told the outlet. “In what planet is this okay? Why is this okay? Why are they rounding people from their homes?”
The New Arab, a Qatari-owned news outlet based in London, alleged that one of the men seen in the footage was Diaa Al-Kahlot, one of its correspondents reporting from Gaza.
Senior Hamas leader Osama Hamdan claimed that the people arrested in the video were unarmed civilians who were not affiliated with the terror group, Arabic broadcaster Al Araby reports.
The northern Gaza city has seen some of the most intense fighting in recent days as the IDF raided Hamas’ general security headquarters in the area.
There, Israeli troops found weapons, equipment and intelligence documents belonging to the terrorist group, officials said.
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The operation came after the IDF encircled the Jabaliya refugee camp, one of the largest in the region that had been besieged by nearby airstrikes and gunfire.
The US has previously demanded an explanation as to why Israel conducted bombardments at the camp that reportedly killed dozens.
Israel has defended its attacks near the camp as a means to reach the headquarters in Jabaliya.
Thursday saw further fighting in northern Gaza as members of the IDF’s Border Defense Corps located a group of Hamas fighters approaching Israeli troops.
The terrorists were seen opening fire at the IDF soldiers, with some of the Hamas operatives armed with RPGs.
The Defense Corps unit was able to call in an airstrike that killed all the Hamas fighters, the IDF said.
After nearly two months of advancing across northern Gaza, the IDF has demolished a majority of the terrorist infrastructure and has ramped up its incursion into the south, with the fighting focused on Khan Younis, the enclave’s second-largest city.
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