According to the Israeli army radio, the army placed numbers on the bodies of suspected Palestinians during an operation in the town of Qabatiya near Jenin in the northern West Bank on Monday.
The radio station published a picture of a Palestinian man with a number written on his hand, but the purpose of placing these numbers was not immediately clear.
Commenting on the incident, the Israeli army simply said: "The commanders explained to the forces the seriousness of this act, and lessons were learned from this matter," according to the radio station.
The radio station did not mention any action being taken against the soldiers involved, and the soldiers' violations against Palestinians are repeated without any announcement of sanctions being imposed on them.
The Times of Israel confirmed that the Israeli army had issued a similarly worded statement following a similar incident last April, when numbers were written on the hands of Palestinians entering a refugee camp under army control.
Reports published by the Hebrew newspaper “Haaretz” previously revealed that the occupation army placed numbers on the foreheads and bodies of Palestinians during investigations in the West Bank, specifically during a military operation it carried out in Qabatiya.
Knesset Member Ahmad Tibi wrote on the “X” platform: “This is what dehumanization looks like: erasing the person and turning them into a number,” adding: “This image is reminiscent of dark times and should shock everyone.”
It should be noted that the occupation army announced on Monday that it had searched 100 buildings in Qabatiya, near the city of Jenin, and arrested two Palestinians suspected of planning attacks, adding that other people were being investigated.
Since the beginning of the Israeli genocidal war in the Gaza Strip in 2023, the Israeli occupation army and settlers have been escalating their attacks against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem.
These attacks include: killing, injuring and arresting Palestinians, demolishing homes and facilities, burning mosques and cars, bulldozing agricultural lands, preventing farmers from accessing their farms, displacing Palestinians, and expanding settlements on their lands.
Palestinians warn that Israel is using these attacks to pave the way for the formal annexation of the West Bank, which would undermine the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state as stipulated in relevant United Nations resolutions.
In 1948, Israel was established on Palestinian lands occupied by armed Zionist gangs who committed massacres and caused the displacement of at least 750,000 Palestinians, before Israel occupied the rest of the lands and refused to withdraw from them.
