A newly leaked photograph has reignited international scrutiny of Israeli military conduct in northern Gaza, offering fresh visual evidence of alleged human rights abuses against Palestinian civilians. The image, published by Palestinian journalist Younis Tirawi on the social platform X, depicts two blindfolded elderly Palestinian men from Beit Lahia, identified as Nadi Marouf and Ali Marouf, standing among Israeli military personnel. Tirawi confirms the photo was captured just hours before the pair were killed by Israeli forces in November 2024.
According to Tirawi’s previous reporting from October 2025, troops from the 92nd Battalion of Israel’s Kfir Brigade abducted the two elderly men from their hometown, holding them as human shields for multiple days before executing them. This account aligns with an earlier October 2025 report from *The Palestine Chronicle*, which detailed that the men were detained, stripped to their underwear, and shot after being released near al-Tawam roundabout. The report added that the pair were forced to enter buildings ahead of Israeli soldiers, a practice that independent investigations have repeatedly documented across Gaza. Ramy Abdu, chairman of the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, confirmed that relatives found the men’s bodies three days after their killing, confirming they were executed following their use as human shields.
This leaked photograph is the latest addition to a growing body of testimonies and visual evidence documenting the systematic use of Palestinian civilians as human shields during Israeli military operations in Gaza. Multiple independent probes have already confirmed the widespread nature of this practice: an Associated Press investigation published in 2025 gathered testimony from both Palestinian civilians and Israeli soldiers confirming the tactic was common, with Palestinians forced to enter potentially booby-trapped buildings and tunnels ahead of Israeli troops to clear for explosives or fighters. Al Jazeera later corroborated these findings, interviews with seven Palestinians and two Israeli military officers who described the routine use of this tactic. A United Nations investigation has previously ruled that forcing civilians to enter structures ahead of soldiers constitutes the use of human shields, a clear violation of international humanitarian law. In May 2025, the Israeli military acknowledged that the practice is “strictly prohibited” under its standing orders and announced it had opened investigations into multiple reported cases.
Alongside these latest allegations of extrajudicial killing and human shielding, reports continue to emerge of abusive conditions for Palestinian detainees held by Israel. On June 21, 71-year-old Dr. Mazen Rantisi — a prominent Palestinian physician widely known as the “doctor of the poor” and chairman of the Health Work Committees, a leading Palestinian medical services organization — was arrested during a pre-dawn Israeli raid on his Ramallah home. In statements relayed through his lawyer, Rantisi confirmed that prison authorities at Ofer Prison withheld his essential daily medication for the first 10 days of his detention, and continue to deny him access to one critical drug. He also reported repeated cell raids by prison security that have included beatings of detainees, and that he has suffered rapid weight loss due to inadequate, unfit food rations consisting of mouldy bread, near-rotten tomatoes, uncooked hummus and foul-smelling rice. Belgian human rights organization Viva Salud has issued a statement expressing grave concern over the health and access to care for Rantisi and a second Health Work Committees official arrested alongside him.
These developments unfold against the backdrop of a rapidly worsening humanitarian catastrophe across the Gaza Strip. Gaza’s Ministry of Health has confirmed that more than 73,000 Palestinians have been killed since the outbreak of war in October 2023, a figure that is widely understood to be an undercount: thousands of bodies remain trapped beneath the rubble of thousands of destroyed buildings, making a full accounting of casualties impossible. On August 4, Gaza held a mass funeral for 112 people killed in an Israeli air strike in 2023, whose remains were only recovered in recent excavation efforts. Gaza authorities estimate thousands more people remain buried under collapsed infrastructure.
The crisis of food insecurity and malnutrition has reached catastrophic levels, according to United Nations data. The UN has already recorded 193 deaths from malnutrition in Gaza, 96 of which are children. In July 2025 alone, screening found 11,877 children between the ages of six and 59 months suffering from acute malnutrition, including 2,562 cases of severe acute malnutrition, the most life-threatening form of the condition. Projections cited by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimate that by October 2026, more than 100,000 children in the same age group will suffer from acute malnutrition, with over 31,000 facing severe, life-threatening cases. UN humanitarian agencies have repeatedly warned that critical levels of food insecurity and malnutrition will persist as long as severe restrictions on the entry of food, medicine and other essential supplies remain in place.
The growing accumulation of allegations of abuse against Palestinian civilians, detainees and the dead has intensified global scrutiny of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza, as humanitarian organizations continue to document crippling restrictions on access to life-saving aid.