A new report by Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, exposed how on Monday, 10 July 2023, at around 1:30 in the morning, dozens of masked Israeli soldiers, with dogs, stormed homes belonging to the extended Palestinian family of Ajloun in Hebron and forced five women to strip naked in front of their frightened children.

The report included testimonies from three women about their experience during the soldiers’ invasion of their house and privacy, and stealing their gold and money.

The soldiers threatened 26 members of the family who were home at the time and confined them to one of the apartments at gunpoint, before they handcuffed three family members, one of them a 17-year-old boy, blindfolded them and took them to another apartment. They then separated the remaining men from the women and children, who were kept in the living room and searched them in a separate room.

The soldiers then took one woman to the room where her children, ranging in age from four to seven, were sleeping. The children woke up in fright. Two masked female soldiers kept the mother from going up to them and threatened to set the dog they had with them on her if she did not strip naked in front of them. The mother had no choice but to undress and turn around in front of the soldiers, and her frightened children, unclothed.

After she got dressed, the soldiers moved her children to the living room and her to another room, then took three more women and a 17-year-old girl to be strip searched. The soldiers gradually separated all 13 children, ranging in age from three months to 14 years, from their mothers, and kept them in the living room for about 20 minutes under guard.

The soldiers left at around 5:30 A.M., at which point family members found two relatives locked in a room in one of the apartments handcuffed and blindfolded. Harbi ‘Ajlouni (37) was not found in the apartment. His wife, Diala ‘Ajlouni (24) found out later that the soldiers had arrested him and taken him with them. He was taken to Ofer prison on possession of weapon charges, and remanded to custody for 35 days and later for 40 more days. Members of the family discovered the soldiers had stolen 150 grams of gold jewelry and NIS 2,000 (~ USD 525) in cash they had at home. The family filed complaints about the theft with the Kiryat Araba police that same day, and the jewelry stolen by the soldiers was returned to them the next day, with the excuse that it had been taken by mistake.

According to B’Tselem, though the military claimed weapons were found in the ‘Ajlouni family home, this claim does nothing to even remotely justify the violence the soldiers used that night, the incomprehensible harm they inflicted on the women and the terror experienced by the children and the rest of the family.

The group said soldiers entering the homes of Palestinians, with dogs, in the middle of the night, sewing fear and terror, wreaking destruction, humiliating and traumatizing members of the household, have longs since become part of the violent routine the apartheid regime employs in the West Bank, completely disregarding the dignity, bodily integrity and lives of Palestinians, including children.  B’Tselem added that the commanders who approve these orders and the soldiers who execute them are fully aware of the absolute immunity they enjoy.