Israel’s military has confirmed that a viral photo showing a semi-naked and blindfolded Palestinian man bound to an iron rod is authentic. The photo triggered an uproar on social media, with rights groups arguing that the image corroborates years of testimony on torture inside Israeli detention facilities in Gaza.

The disturbing photo was shared on a now-deleted social media account in late June with the Hebrew-language caption “good morning” and was brought to wider attention by a Palestinian activist under the nickname Tamer.

He claimed that the man had been kidnapped by soldiers from the ‘Netzah Yehuda’ battalion in Gaza. While the photo surfaced in late June, the incident got the media spotlight only this week.

The picture shows the man lying face down on a military cot, blindfolded and stripped to his underwear, his hands bound behind his back and an iron rod strapped to his body from foot to neck. The reason why the Palestinian had been detained is unclear.

WARNING: DISTURBING PHOTO

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the photo’s authenticity, telling The Times of Israel that it had located the incident “after a thorough investigation.” It added that the troops involved would be “treated in accordance with the findings” while stressing that such treatment of the Palestinian “does not align with IDF values and regulations.”

Oneg Ben Dror of Physicians for Human Rights Israel said, as cited by The Guardian, that the photo “confirms what thousands of testimonies from Palestinian detainees have exposed,” calling Israeli detention facilities “torture camps.” 

Sari Bashi of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel said that holding and photographing the man semi-naked broke international law, adding that “there is no security justification for holding a detainee in his underwear” while sharing sexualized images online “is a form of sexual violence and also a war crime.”

After the photo went viral, at least two mothers came forward claiming the bound man as their son. One of the women, Rana Abu Nasser, identified the man as her son Osama, saying that he had been seized with his one-year-old son in March near the Israeli-imposed demarcation line in Gaza.

Israel has faced accusations of genocide and human rights abuses against Palestinians for years. Last month, a UN commission accused Israeli forces of targeting and killing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, saying that more than 20,000 children had been killed and 44,000 injured since October 2023.