Israel, Gaza: 100 terrorists surrender to IDF and stripped to underwear, reports say

The group turned themselves in after being pushed back by the advancing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) near Jabaliya, the Times of Israel reports.

Local Channel 13 showed images of the surrender, which featured dozens of men lined up on a street, sitting in rows with their hands over their heads.

Many of the men were stripped to just their underwear as the IDF troops lined up others to proceed farther down the closed-off road, the NY Post reports.

In one clip, the Hamas members could be seen in the back of an Israeli military vehicle.

Channel 13 reporter Almog Boker estimated that more than 100 Hamas fighters turned themselves in, the largest group to surrender to the IDF since Israel began its incursion into the Palestinian enclave.

Israel’s Kan News, however, reported that the group of men were detained before the IDF could verify if they were all in fact members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The New Arab, a Qatari-owned news outlet based in London, alleged that one of the men seen in the footage was Diaa Al-Kahlot, one of its correspondents reporting from Gaza.

Senior Hamas leader Osama Hamdan claimed that the people arrested in the video were unarmed civilians who were not affiliated with the terror group, Arabic broadcaster Al Araby reports.

The IDF has yet to comment on the arrests in Jabaliya.

The northern Gaza city has seen some of the most intense fighting in recent days as the IDF raided Hamas’ general security headquarters in the area.

There, Israeli troops found weapons, equipment and intelligence documents belonging to the terrorist group, officials said.

The operation came after the IDF encircled the Jabaliya refugee camp, one of the largest in the region that had been besieged by nearby air strikes and gunfire.

The US has previously demanded an explanation as to why Israel conducted bombardments at the camp that reportedly killed dozens.

Israel has defended its attacks near the camp as a means to reach the headquarters in Jabaliya.

Thursday saw further fighting in northern Gaza as members of the IDF’s Border Defense Corps located a group of Hamas fighters approaching Israeli troops.

The terrorists were seen opening fire at the IDF soldiers, with some of the Hamas operatives armed with RPGs.

The Defense Corps unit was able to call in an air strike that killed all the Hamas fighters, the IDF said.

After nearly two months of advancing across northern Gaza, the IDF has demolished a majority of the terrorist infrastructure and has now ramped up its incursion into the south, with the fighting focused on Khan Younis, the enclave’s second largest city.

This article originally appeared on NY Post and was reproduced with permission