On Thursday, Oct. 31, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a massive arrest campaign in Dura in the West Bank, targeting more than 20 prisoners. They were blindfolded, handcuffed, insulted and kept in inhumane conditions. They were identified with numbers written on their foreheads instead of their names.
Among them were several prominent Hamas activists who were previously detained after the outbreak of the war on Gaza and had been released from prison a few months ago.
According to Middle East Eye (MEE), the raid lasted 11 hours and soldiers distributed leaflets and posters bearing threatening warnings not to attack the army or Israeli settlers. Schools were also suspended due to the raid.
Reports indicate that when the IDF attacks West Bank towns and villages, life is completely shut down. Snipers are deployed on buildings while streets are flooded with soldiers and military vehicles that prevent the movement of residents.
The news outlet reported that at the moment, arrest campaigns are nearly daily in the Palestinian territory. (Related: Israeli soldiers accused of even more torture and abuse in the West Bank.)
Osama Shaheen, one of the former Gaza detainees released in August after 10 months of administrative detention, said that during the most recent arrest campaign, Israeli soldiers brutally stormed his house and smashed his furniture. He was then taken to a military vehicle, where he was blindfolded and handcuffed.
They brought him and other detainees to the house of the former member of the Palestinian Legislative Council Nayef Rjoub, where the soldiers provocatively raised an Israeli flag.
"I was interrogated violently and beaten on various parts of my body, especially my head and chest," Shaheen said. "The soldiers turned us from names into numbers and every detainee had a number that they used to provoke him during his arrest and call him by number instead of name. To them, we are just numbers."
The same thing happened to the house of Ayed Dudin, a paramedic who was released from Israeli prison in July. However, Dudin was out as he was providing medical support to people wounded by the raid. The IDF took his son Mohammed instead.
"I received a phone call from an officer in the Israeli army and he asked me to surrender myself so that my son would be released. Although I went to do so, they didn't release Mohammad and kept him detained with me," Dudin told MEE, adding that he was also hurt, abused and branded a number on his forehead as well.
Imad Abu Hawash, an activist from the Palestine Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), told MEE that these raids are increasingly becoming longer, lasting for hours at a time and terrorizing Palestinians in their homes, which are often ransacked.
"Usually, a Palestinian is arrested and transferred to a known interrogation center where he is interrogated. But the Israeli soldiers have replaced that with these humiliating measures, and they say that they have the right to detain any person for six hours without reporting him as a detainee to the Israeli army," Abu Hawash said.
Israel damages UNRWA West Bank during recent raid
The office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the agency that supports the relief and human development of Palestinian refugees, has been massively damaged after Israelis targeted a West Bank refugee camp.
The main office building had minor damage and an adjacent temporary hall was flattened, covered with dirt and its corrugated roof knocked over. But the Israeli military denied it deliberately damaged the Nur Shams refugee camp building.
IDF said militants had planted explosives nearby and set them off to attack Israeli troops and that the blast "likely caused damage to the building."
The said attack happened after Israel's parliament passed laws that would effectively ban UNRWA's operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. Israel accused a dozen UNRWA employees of participating in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack.
The ban, which incited global backlash including from top Israeli weapons supplier and ally, the United States, should come into force in late January.
The UN Security Council already warned that it would have severe consequences for millions of Palestinians. UNRWA spokesman Jonathan Fowler also told reporters that the ban would probably cause the collapse of aid efforts to Gaza.
"If this law is implemented, it would be likely to cause the collapse of the international humanitarian operation in the Gaza Strip – an operation of which UNRWA is the backbone," Fowler told AFP. "It would also be likely to cause the collapse of essential services provided by UNRWA in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, including education, healthcare and sanitation."
But Israel has dismissed the argument on Gaza, saying only a part of aid was being delivered into the territory by UNRWA.
"The State of Israel is committed to international law and will continue to facilitate the entrance of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip in a manner that does not harm the security of the citizens of Israel," Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said.
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