Three Palestinian brothers rounded up by Israel in the Gaza Strip said they and fellow detainees were beaten, stripped to their underwear, burnt with cigarettes and subjected to other forms of mistreatment during their detention, Reuters reports.

Sobhi Yaseen, his brothers Sady and Ibrahim were among dozens of Palestinian men sheltering in a school in Rafah in southern Gaza who spoke to Reuters about their treatment at the hands of Israeli soldiers.

Sobhi said he and his brothers were detained in early December after the Israeli military encircled the area where they lived and worked as day labourers in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.

He said four people beat him after he was unable to climb onto a truck due to a leg injury sustained before his arrest, and that he was then taken to an open area where captors were “smoking and putting out cigarettes on our backs, spraying sand and water on us, urinating on us”.