Gaza “modesty police” are out in full force, and have arrested more than 40 in April alone, driving fears that Hamas-inspired Islamic fundamentalism is taking over the region.

Most of the arrests included beatings and all faced forced hair shavings, The Telegraph reported. Rajou Hayek, 33, was arrested as he pushed his father in a wheelchair to a medical facility in Gaza City, on fabricated charges, he said.

“When I arrived at the police station, the first thing I saw was a mountain of hair,” he said, in The Telegraph. “It looked like it had been shaved from 300 heads.”

He, too, was shaved — after he was beaten, he said.

“It was humiliating,” he said, in The Telegraph. “I was crying throughout. This policy is nothing to do with jeans or hairstyles. Hamas is just trying to make Gaza afraid of them.”

Others caught up in arrests by modesty police said they could hear the screams of those who were in jail rooms next to them. And then they faced their own beatings.

“Two men held my legs down and tied them together on a wooden board, then they beat the soles of my feet with a plastic rod,” said one, in The Telegraph.

Gaza is a Palestinian settlement that’s been run by Hamas for the last six years.

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