IDF releases shocking Hamas torture videos in Gaza

The IDF’s discovery comes amid ongoing concerns about 101 hostages still being held in Gaza more than 400 days after the October 7 massacre. Human rights groups have previously highlighted cases in which Palestinian citizens – alleged political dissidents, LGBTQ people, suspected adulterers and those accused of collaborating with Israel – have been detained and abused by Hamas.

The Daily Mail first reported the wealth of disturbing footage on Saturday. A senior IDF official told the newspaper that the military “found these CCTV images in March. It took months to go through them all.”

Hamas torture victim Hamza Howidy, 27, told The Mail how he was arrested for protesting against the regime in Gaza. “They would torture you until you were broke and say whatever they wanted,” he said. “I could hear my fellow protesters screaming in the next room.”

Howidy, an accountant who later fled Gaza, estimated that he was held somewhere in western Jabaliya in 2019, but it is not clear whether he appears in the videos obtained by the IDF.

“Hamas controls everything. They confiscated my laptop and had problems with my conversations with my girlfriend,” he said.

He said one of the men was detained for three years and tortured three times a week. “Objects were introduced into it,” Howidy added. “A man was given electric shocks for two years before his innocence was finally established. The first thing he did was shoot the Hamas officer 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. In September last year I managed to cross the Egyptian border into Europe, which cost a fortune, but my family there was told that I would be a dead man if I returned.

He added: “You just can’t tell who is a Hamas spy or not.”

“A friend of mine had to divorce his wife because he got caught for something. “The hatred of Hamas is growing now, especially after the war, but because Hamas controls the media and people are afraid, we hardly hear about it,” Howidy said.

“People outside Gaza call Hamas freedom fighters when they kill innocent Palestinians for nothing. Hamas is holding the people of Gaza hostage.”

“Some are electrocuted on utility poles or dragged from a vehicle by a chain until they die,” he said. “What’s worse is that they don’t give the families a proper burial and the bodies have a sign saying they collaborated.”

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