A number, '44', is branded on his forehead and arms. His eyes express exhaustion after yet another military detention. This is how Ahmed Hatna, a resident of the town of Qabatiyah in the northern West Bank, emerged from one of the many recent controversial incidents that have now under scrutiny the conduct of Israeli soldiers in this land , already plagued by ongoing violence from extremist settlers. And like Ahmed, according to local sources, other Palestinians detained in an IDF raid on Monday were also released after being marked "with numbers written in marker" on various parts of their bodies.

Some were also reportedly "beaten" during arrest and subjected to threatening interrogations .

The case, reported by the daily newspaper Haaretz, caused a particular sensation, so much so that the Israeli army itself admitted that the soldiers involved had exaggerated .

"This is what dehumanization looks like: erasing the human being and turning him into a number," Ahmad Tibi, member of the Knesset and leader of the Arab-Israeli Ta'al party, had thundered earlier, denouncing the incident on social media. "It's an image that recalls dark times," he added, commenting on a local TV report on the incident.

In providing an initial official account of the events, the IDF explained that it had raided around 100 buildings to search for individuals "involved in planning attacks," arresting two suspects and questioning others. Local sources reported a higher number of arrests and that some had been beaten. "They don't treat us like human beings," one of those involved complained. The army later admitted that its soldiers had "flagged the suspects who were being interrogated as part of the operation" and that their superiors' reprimand for this action, deemed "serious," had provided an opportunity to "learn the appropriate lessons."

This is not the first time something similar has happened: in April, Israeli soldiers wrote numbers on the hands of Palestinian women entering the Jenin refugee camp, a practice later defined by the IDF as a "bad judgment" .

The raid in Qabatiyah occurred amid an escalation of tensions in the West Bank, due to often violent actions by settlers aimed at reclaiming previously abandoned settlements, to which the government and military generally respond with silence and inaction.

(Unioneonline)

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