Israel must “release” all “arbitrarily detained” Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and shed light on the deaths, “mass disappearances” and “inhumane treatment”, Amnesty International said on Wednesday, AFP reported.

Stripped Palestinian prisonersPhoto: bbc.com frame

“All those unjustly detained must be released,” the NGO’s regional director, Heba Morayef, said in a statement, stressing “the need for an independent investigation” into alleged violence against Palestinians in Gaza.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military announced to AFP that it had launched an investigation into “the deaths of some terrorists in military detention centers”, without specifying the number of detainees and the circumstances of their death.

The Israeli military was heavily criticized last week after images were released showing dozens of Palestinians arrested in the Gaza Strip in their underwear, blindfolded and handcuffed while guarded by Israeli soldiers.

In early December, the military announced that “500 terrorists” had been arrested in the Gaza Strip.

Later, some of them were released, being doctors, journalists or simple workers.

Israel defended itself by saying it stripped the detainees because it was looking for “matches with images of the attack”.

The war between Israel and Hamas, which entered its 75th day on Wednesday, was sparked by the Palestinian Islamist movement’s bloody and unprecedented attack on Israeli territory in the Gaza Strip on October 7.

About 1,140 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the attack and 250 people were forcibly taken to Gaza, about a hundred of whom have since been released, according to AFP, based on the latest available official Israeli figures.

After the October 7 attack, Israel vowed to “destroy” Hamas by bombing, besieging, and conducting a large-scale ground operation in Palestinian territory beginning October 27.

According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, at least 20,000 people, most of them women, children and teenagers, have been killed since the Israeli bombardment began.

Amnesty also reiterated its call on Hamas to “immediately and unconditionally release all hostages”, stressing that the abduction of civilians is a war crime.

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