The Israeli military has confirmed that its soldiers wrote numbers on the foreheads of Palestinian detainees during a recent raid in the occupied West Bank town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, according to reports from Al Jazeera and Reuters. The incident, which took place on Monday, was initially documented by Palestinian news outlets before being officially acknowledged by Israeli authorities.
According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, Israeli forces deployed across several neighborhoods in Qabatiya during the operation. Local sources informed the agency that soldiers searched multiple homes and detained several young men. The Israeli army subsequently released a statement claiming that troops had arrested two individuals suspected of planning and promoting violent plots.
The situation gained international attention when footage emerged on Monday showing a Palestinian man with the number 44 written prominently on his forehead. The marked detainee, Ahmad al-Hathnawi, told Palestinian media that this was the first time the army had employed such a degrading tactic against him. He noted that he had been released from Israeli detention just 10 days prior, marking his fourth release, but had never experienced this specific practice.
Al-Hathnawi described the ordeal as an exercise in psychological intimidation aimed at families and freed detainees. He stated that the military was attempting to send a clear message that illegal settlers would remain in the area indefinitely and would face no resistance. He also revealed that there were approximately 50 detainees, including blindfolded women, held inside the house where he was interrogated.
The practice of marking Palestinian detainees with numbers has a recent precedent in the region. Similar reports emerged in April when soldiers wrote numbers on the hands of Palestinian women in Jenin. At the time, the Israeli army acknowledged the action and dismissed it as a display of poor judgment by the soldiers involved.
Following the incident in Qabatiya, the Israeli army told the media that field commanders had clarified the seriousness of the act to their troops.
Military officials claimed that internal lessons had been learned from the episode.
Knesset lawmaker Ahmad Tibi strongly condemned the military action on social media. He described the practice of erasing a person’s identity and reducing them to a mere number as a shocking and repulsive example of dehumanization, adding that it recalls dark historical periods.
The controversial detentions occur against a backdrop of intensifying military raids and settler violence across the occupied West Bank. Illegal settlers recently erected tents on Palestinian land to establish a new outpost near Ramallah. Additionally, another group of armed settlers has maintained a siege on the village of Qusra for 11 consecutive days.
The mayor of Qusra expressed severe concerns to Al Jazeera, stating that the prolonged siege represents a new systematic approach designed to force Palestinians from their ancestral homes. He warned that the trapped families would run out of food supplies within two days and urgently require humanitarian aid and medical provisions.
The office of the Palestinian prime minister reported on Wednesday that Israeli forces and settlers had executed more than 467 attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over a single week. The violence resulted in the demolition of at least 75 Palestinian homes and civilian structures.
United Nations special representative Francesca Albanese told Al Jazeera that the ongoing settler violence and the siege in Qusra have reached an unprecedented climax. She accused the Israeli government of outsourcing coercion to settlers to advance a campaign of ethnic cleansing, calling for immediate international investigations and prosecutions for what she described as utter terrorism.
