Hamas: Palestine detainee deaths at Israeli military facilities are ‘war crimes’

The Palestinian group Hamas stated on Thursday that the deaths of Palestinians from Gaza held by the Israeli army at military facilities are “war crimes” that require an international probe, Anadolu Agency reported.

In a statement, Hamas said the Israeli media report 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 conveyed that such incidents require an international investigation by international legal groups.

The Palestinian group urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 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 revealed that 27 Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip died or were killed in mysterious conditions while in custody at the Israeli Sde Teiman base, the Anatot base in Jerusalem or during investigations in other facilities within Israel.

According to the investigation conducted by the newspaper, the Israeli occupation army has not provided any information regarding the circumstances of their demise.

Read: UNRWA exposes painful testimonies of prisoners from Gaza detained by Israel

The newspaper pointed out that the arrests of citizens from the Gaza Strip were carried out under the Unlawful Combatants Law, which allows Israel to: “Imprison anyone without trial if they engage in hostile activities against the state, and are not defined as prisoners of war in Israel.”

According to a report by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) published on 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 7 October 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 the 7 October 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 basic 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 per cent of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60 per cent 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. 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.