Israel numbers Palestinian detainee foreheads: What we know

The Israeli army has confirmed that soldiers marked Palestinian detainees with numbers on their foreheads during a raid on the town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank earlier this week.

Palestinian news outlets reported the incident, which took place on Monday.

According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, Israeli forces had deployed in several neighbourhoods of Qabatiya, with local sources telling the news agency that soldiers had searched a number of houses and arrested several young men.

The army also said in a statement that troops had arrested two people during the raid who were suspected of “planning and promoting terrorist plots”.

However, footage published on Monday from the raid showed a Palestinian man with the number “44” written on his forehead, sparking outrage.

One of the detainees, Ahmad al-Hathnawi, who was marked with the number, told Palestinian media that this was the first time that the army had written numbers on his forehead.

Al-Hathnawi explained that he had been released from Israeli detention 10 days ago for the fourth time, but said that he had never experienced something like this before.

“It was just interrogation and terrorism, intimidation of the families and the freed detainees,” he said.