Masked female soldiers in the Israeli army, armed and accompanied by an attack dog, forced five Palestinian women in the city of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, to completely undress, one by one, and walk around naked, according to the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" on Monday, following interviews with the women and their Palestinian family members. The newspaper reported that the women, consisting of a mother, her daughter, and three wives of her sons, stated that the soldiers threatened them with the dog attacking if they did not comply with their orders, while soldiers were conducting body searches on men without forcing them to remove their clothing.
The incident occurred during a raid by soldiers on a Palestinian family building "following intelligence reports of weapons being present," on July 10th. The building houses 26 members of the same family distributed across three adjacent homes, 15 of whom are children and teenagers aged between 4 and 17 years.
"Haaretz" clarified that the raid took place at midnight, involving around 50 Israeli soldiers, according to family estimates, accompanied by at least two dogs. Approximately half of the soldiers spread throughout the homes and roamed inside after waking the residents with flashlights carried in their hands, knocking on doors and threatening to break them down.
According to family members who spoke to the newspaper, "most of the soldiers were masked, with only their eyes visible. The face of one, who seemed to be the commanding officer, was visible, wearing military pants and a (casual) short-sleeved shirt." The women told the newspaper that they were taken one by one to a children's room and forced to completely undress in front of the children who had woken up from their sleep.
One woman described that the two female soldiers brought a large and fierce dog close to her, almost touching her body while demanding that she remove her clothes, as the children screamed in fear, witnessing her comply with the soldiers' orders. The soldiers also detained all family members in two rooms, one for men and another for women and children, while some soldiers remained at the doors, preventing them from making any noise.
Hamas issued a statement regarding the newspaper's report, stating: "What media reports have revealed about the violation of the sanctity of the homes of our Palestinian people in the city of Hebron, including storming into houses, terrorizing the safe, and exposing the dignity of our women under the threat of weapons and police dogs, confirms once again that we are facing a rogue entity devoid of commitment to any of the international laws that protect populations under occupation. While the international community turns a blind eye to the ongoing crimes of the occupation, the occupying government continues to escalate its violations and crimes to a dangerous level affecting the dignity and sanctities of our Palestinian people." They emphasized that "violating the sanctity of homes and exposing our women is a crime and a grave escalation that the occupation will pay for with more strikes from our heroic resistance."
