Chained and flogged with sticks: Israel unveils ‘thousands of hours’ of sickening footage showing Hamas interrogators torturing innocent Palestinians

The Israeli military says it has discovered thousands of hours of sickening footage showing Hamas interrogators torturing innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The harrowing videos show male prisoners with bags over their heads, chained to floors and ceilings in painful positions.

Men writhe in pain as they are hit on the soles of their feet with sticks.

In one disturbing clip, a hooded man appears to scream and protest at his captor.

The horrific incidents appear to have been inadvertently filmed by CCTV cameras at a Hamas military base in northern Gaza, which was raided by Israeli forces earlier this year.

The harrowing videos show male prisoners with bags over their heads, chained to floors and ceilings in painful positions

Men writhe in pain as they are hit on the soles of their feet with sticks

The images were allegedly discovered on computers seized from the abandoned site in the Jabalia refugee camp. It is unclear why the men were detained.

But human rights experts have previously warned that innocent Palestinians have been kidnapped from their homes and tortured by Hamas thugs who have ruled Gaza with an iron bar since 2007.

Gay men and adulterers are among those tortured by Hamas, along with political opponents and anyone accused of collaborating with Israel.

A time stamp in the corner of the footage suggests the torture took place between 2018 and 2020.

Often the guards appear casually at ease, chatting as the abuse unfolds.

One interrogator leans back on a chair, his arms folded behind his head, facing a chained prisoner hanging from the ceiling by his arms.

Another film shows a man with a red bag over his head, chained so awkwardly that he can almost put one foot on the ground. A kidnapper later appears to brutally strangle the man.

A senior Israeli military source told The Mail on Sunday: ‘The IDF found this CCTV footage in March. It took months to go through them all.” It has not been possible to independently verify the videos, but human rights groups have long warned of abuses by Hamas against civilians in Gaza. Amnesty International published a 44-page report detailing a brutal campaign of kidnapping, torture and murder by Hamas against its own people after the last war between Israel and Hamas in 2014.

Mr Howidy, an accountant who later fled Gaza, said: ‘People outside Gaza call Hamas freedom fighters while they kill innocent Palestinians for nothing’

A Palestinian man carries an injured child from a house hit during an Israeli attack on the Jabalia refugee camp

Many were accused of collaborating with Israel. Hamas has also tortured and killed gay men in Gaza, where homosexuality is against the law.

Hundreds of gay men risked their lives to cross the border into Israel or Egypt before the most recent conflict.

One, Abdul, previously told Israeli media how he lived in fear in Gaza after Hamas discovered he was gay. He was tortured repeatedly before fleeing to Egypt.

In a chilling account that matches the torture captured in the footage found by the IDF, he told i24News: “They put me in a small room. They wouldn’t let me sleep or go to the toilet. There was no food.

‘They would torture me so much. Sometimes they tied my feet and beat them with a stick. After that, every few years they arrested me and tortured me in the same way.

“They made me swear on the Koran that I won’t be gay anymore.”

Last night, another victim of Hamas torture, Hamza Howidy, 27, told The Mail on Sunday how he was detained for protesting against the regime in Gaza.

“They tortured you until you broke and said whatever they wanted,” he said. “I could hear my fellow protesters in the next room screaming.”

Gay men and adulterers are among those tortured by Hamas, along with political opponents and anyone accused of collaborating with Israel. (Israeli army tanks take position in southern Israel, near the border with the Gaza Strip)

Displaced Palestinians flee Rafah with their belongings to safer areas in the southern Gaza Strip

Mr Howidy, an accountant who later fled Gaza, said he believed he was being held in western Jabalia in 2019, but it is not known whether he appears in the footage.

He said: ‘Hamas controls everything. They confiscated my laptop and had problems with my conversations with my girlfriend.

“Collaborating with Israel would warrant a severe punishment and homosexuality would result in a death sentence.” Mr Howidy said one man was held for three years and tortured three times a week. “Objects were put into him,” he added. ‘One man received electric shocks for two years before his innocence was finally discovered.

‘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. Last September I managed to leave for Europe via the Egyptian border, which cost a fortune, but my family there were told that if I returned I would be walking like a dead man. Luckily I also gave them safe passage.’

He added: “You simply cannot say who is a Hamas traitor or not.

‘A friend of mine was forced to divorce his wife when he was caught doing something. There is a growing hatred towards Hamas now, especially after the war, but because Hamas controls the media and people are afraid, we hardly hear about it.

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

Relatives of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Az-Zawayda district pray funeral prayer

A doctor administers a polio vaccine to a Palestinian child at the Abdel Aziz Rantissi Hospital in the Nasr district of Gaza City

A former Israeli intelligence officer known as Guy C told this newspaper that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF last month, was “obsessed with finding collaborators and held thousands against their will.”

He added: ‘They are known to melt plastic over the skin and electrical cables on their bodies.

“Some are electrocuted on utility poles or dragged from a vehicle by a chain until they die.

“Worse, they don’t want to bury the families properly, and the bodies have a sign on them saying they cooperated.”

Palestinian Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who now lives in the US and is a member of the Atlantic Council think tank, said: ‘Extreme torture has been a fundamental part of Hamas’s governance strategy to ensure that they deter people and instill fear in those who speak out.’