Israeli media carried new pictures of troops posing with handcuffed Palestinian prisoners, two days after a former soldier caused uproar for posting such images on Facebook.
"It has become the norm for soldiers to take such pictures," not the exception, Yehuda Shaul, of the rights group Breaking the Silence which initially distributed the controversial pictures, said.
On Monday Israeli public television broadcast pictures of ex-soldier Eden Abargil, which she had posted on the social networking site Facebook, posing smirking next to three blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian soldiers.
The army denounced the photographs as "shameful," while the Palestinian Authority expressed outrage, describing them as humiliating.
One of the latest pictures, also posted on Facebook, shows a group of soldiers surrounding a young, kneeling female prisoner, while another shows a soldier posing next to a wounded Palestinian.
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A third shows a soldier posing next to a blindfolded and cuffed prisoner.
"It is amazing that these pictures shocked people in Israel itself, where many worse things happen" during the arrest and interrogation of prisoners, said Shaul.
For years his organisation has been collecting testimony from soldiers who have served in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, as part of its anti-occupation campaign.
Eden Abargil told local media she could not understand why her posting the pictures in a Facebook album called "The army - the best time of my life" was denounced by the military.
Israeli military spokesman Captain Barak Raz called the images "repulsive photos, shameful photos, photos that the IDF (Israel Defence Force) strongly condemns." Abargil was stung by the army's reaction.
"What really upsets me is the IDF's response," she told the Tel Aviv daily Yediot Aharonot on Tuesday.
"Is this how they treat a soldier who gave her soul to the army?" And in another interview with Israel's army radio she said: "What's wrong with that? I don't understand.
There was no violence in the pictures, there was no disrespect."
Those pictures were taken at an army base near the Gaza Strip before Abargil's discharge from the army last year.
The Haaretz daily on Wednesday carried the only editorial devoted to the pictures under the headline "Appalling army experience", in which it questioned Abargil's failure to understand "what all the fuss is about."
"Abergil's 'experience' is reflective of a culture that has taken root over the course of decades of occupation, one which perceives Palestinian prisoners as subhuman," the editorial said.
Haaretz also drew a comparison between the Israeli pictures and the horrific photographs published in 2004 showing US soldiers standing proudly next to bloody and battered prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"It is imperative that explicit, unambiguous rules for what soldiers are and are not permitted to do to detainees are set, and to impress upon troops an ethical code that makes clear such behaviour will not be tolerated," it said.
"The humiliation of Palestinian detainees must not be remembered as the 'best time' of any soldier's army experience."
