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UN Probe Finds ‘Appalling Acts’ of Torture Against Palestinians Detained by Israel

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Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Palestinian Faouzi Abdel Aal, 21, is rushed to Nasser hospital in the southern Gaza Strip to receive treatment for his injuries, after being reportedly released from an Israeli detention center on July 25, 2024. (Photo: Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.N. report found evidence of sexual violence, waterboarding, and the use of dogs against detainees, many of whom were deprived of food, water, sleep, and toilet access.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday released a report detailing torture and abuse of Palestinians at Israeli detention centers, including sexual violence, waterboarding, and the use of dogs.

Israeli security forces have also used electric shocks, burned detainees with cigarettes, and deprived them of food, water, sleep, and toilet access, according to the 23-page OHCHR report, based largely on interviews with released detainees. Some detainees said they were held with their arms suspended from the ceiling; were forced to be naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers; and were blindfolded for extended periods.

Israel security forces have arrested thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza since October, many of them arbitrarily; they held more than 9,400 “security detainees” as of the end of June, often in secret and incommunicado, without providing a reason for the detainment, the report says.

“The testimonies gathered by my office and other entities indicate a range of appalling acts, such as waterboarding and the release of dogs on detainees, amongst other acts, in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” U.N. Human Rights chief Volker Türk said in a statement accompanying the report.

Most of the detainees have been men and adolescent boys, though some are also women and adolescent girls, and there are many reported instances of sexual and gender-based violence, the report says, including “the forced nudity of both men and women; beatings while naked, including on the genitals; electrocution of the genitals and anus; being forced to undergo repeated humiliating strip searches; widespread sexual slurs and threats of rape; and the inappropriate touching of women by both male and female soldiers.”

OHCHR also said it had video evidence of detainees filmed in “deliberately humiliating positions” while handcuffed and blindfolded, and noted it received “consistent reports” of Israeli security forces “inserting objects into detainees’ anuses.”

Some detainees also reported “cage-like” facilities and overcrowding. The report says that 13 to 20 male detainees were kept in cells designed for five people, forcing many to sleep on the floor. There were “poor living, hygiene, and health conditions, with reports of water running only one hour per day over several weeks” and detainees faced “exposure to cold temperatures due to the confiscation of blankets and removal of windows panes in cold weather.”

At least 53 Palestinian detainees have died in Israeli detention centers since October, according to the report, which suggests that the detention system appears “to constitute a collectively punitive measure against Palestinians,” citing the words of Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s minister of national security, who has said that “terrorists” deserve the most “stringent conditions.” Male detainees reported losing between about 55 and 120 pounds while in custody.

The OHCHR report comes as a highly controversial case involving detention abuse unfolds in Israel. The Israeli military is investigating nine soldiers for alleged “substantial abuse” of a Palestinian detainee who reportedly had to be hospitalized and could not walk after they attacked him. Far-right Israeli groups and political figures have protested the investigation.

Concern about Israeli detentions of Palestinians has been high for many months. In January, a Palestinian watchdog group issued a report condemning the forced disappearance of Gazans, and The New York Times found evidence of detainees being stripped and beaten.

Not all of the alarms about the situation in Israeli detentions centers have come from abroad. In February, Israeli’s public defender’s office issued a report calling for improved prison conditions, including for Palestinians. In April, local human rights groups called for a closure of the Sde Teiman military base detention center, due to its notorious conditions.

The calls were prompted in part by gruesome reports including amputations of detainees’ limbs due to handcuff injuries. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East then issued a damning report on detainee treatment, including of its own staff, some of whom had been detained and subjected to harsh interrogation.

Last week, Save the Children called for an end to the Israel’s arbitrary detainment of Palestinian minors, with a regional director saying that “these children are trapped, unable to move or see the sun, forced into crowded cells with appalling, unsanitary conditions, and subject to severe abuse and violence.”

Experts said Wednesday that the OHCHR report served mainly to confirm previous findings on Israeli detention centers. Neil Sammonds, a campaigner at the U.K.-based progressive advocacy group War on Want, said on social media that leaders of the new U.K. government haven’t spoken up about abuses at Israeli detention centers. He also said that the report could be used as evidence by the International Criminal Court, which has sought arrest warrants for both Israeli and Hamas leaders.

The new report also addresses abuses of Israelis held by Hamas and affiliated groups. The Palestinian militants killed roughly 1,200 people in a horrific set of attacks in southern Israel on October 7 and kidnapped about 250 Israelis, more than 100 of whom have since been released. Like Palestinian detainees, the released Israelis reported “appalling” conditions, the report says, including beatings, receiving surgery without anesthetic, and sexual and gender-based violence. The Israeli government has reported that 44 of the remaining hostages in Gaza have died.

Both Israel and Hamas have refused to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit detainees or hostages. The OHCHR called for both sides to allow such independent monitoring.

Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue ReadingUN Probe Finds ‘Appalling Acts’ of Torture Against Palestinians Detained by Israel

Israeli air strikes destroy a school in Gaza, killing 30 people

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israeli-air-strikes-destroy-school-gaza-killing-30-people

A Palestinian boy walks past the rubble of a school destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, July 27, 2024

ISRAELI air strikes destroyed a school used by displaced Palestinians in central Gaza on Saturday, killing at least 30 people, including several children.

Seven children and seven women were reportedly among the dead taken from the girls’ school in Deir al-Balah to al-Aqsa Hospital.

Israel’s military said that the air raid was targeted at a Hamas command centre used to direct attacks against Israeli troops and store “large quantities of weapons.”

Hamas slammed the Israeli claim as false.

Civil defence workers in Gaza said thousands had been sheltering in the school, which also contained a medical site.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said at least another 12 people were killed in other strikes on Saturday.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/israeli-air-strikes-destroy-school-gaza-killing-30-people

Continue ReadingIsraeli air strikes destroy a school in Gaza, killing 30 people

US Healthcare Workers Back From Gaza Tell Harris and Biden: ‘End This Madness Now’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Palestinians wounded by Israeli attacks are brought to Nasser Hospital for medical treatment in Khan Younis, Gaza on July 22, 2024. (Photo: Doaa Albaz/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets.”

As President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday, dozens of American healthcare workers who recently volunteered in the Gaza Strip urged the U.S. leaders to do everything in their power to end Israel’s assault on the enclave, citing the horrors they witnessed firsthand.

In an open letter addressed to Biden, Harris, and First Lady Jill Biden, 45 physicians, surgeons, and nurses wrote that “we wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them.”

“We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget,” the letter reads. “We cannot believe that anyone would continue arming the country that is deliberately killing these children after seeing what we have seen.”

The healthcare workers called on the Biden administration to “withhold military, economic, and diplomatic support from the state of Israel and to participate in an international arms embargo of both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups until a permanent cease-fire is established, and until good-faith negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians lead to a permanent resolution of the conflict.”

“We are not politicians. We do not claim to have all the answers,” they continued. “We are simply physicians and nurses who cannot remain silent about what we saw in Gaza. Every day that we continue supplying weapons and munitions to Israel is another day that women are shredded by our bombs and children are murdered with our bullets. President Biden and Vice President Harris, we urge you: End this madness now!”

The letter was released as Netanyahu, fresh off his widely condemned address to the U.S. Congress, met separately on Thursday with Biden and Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

In remarks following her meeting with Netanyahu, Harris said that “what has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,” pointing to “the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time.”

“We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies,” the vice president added. “We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.”

Harris said she told Netanyahu directly to “get this deal done”—referring to a cease-fire agreement with Hamas—but, as expected, she did not break with the administration on supplying arms to the Israeli military.

While there has been no obvious policy change from the administration now that Harris has taken over for Biden at the top of the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft argued that the vice president “clearly broke with Biden on Israel in terms of rhetoric and tone.”

Parsi also contended that there was “a substance shift.”

“Biden has disingenuously claimed that Hamas blocked a cease-fire deal,” Parsi wrote on social media. “By saying that she urged Netanyahu ‘to clinch the deal,’ Kamala pointed to the real obstacle.”

In their letter to Harris and Biden, the healthcare workers wrote that Israel “has directly targeted and deliberately devastated Gaza’s entire healthcare system” and “targeted our colleagues in Gaza for death, disappearance, and torture.” According to figures from the United Nations Human Rights Office, Israeli forces have killed one in every 40 healthcare workers in the Palestinian territory since October as diseases spread and the number of Gazans killed or wounded continues to grow by the hour.

The healthcare workers expressed the view that—based on available evidence and their experiences—”the death toll from this conflictis many times higher than what is reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health,” which currently stands at over 39,100.

“We also believe this is probative evidence of widespread violations of American laws governing the use of American weapons abroad, and of international humanitarian law,” they continued. “We cannot forget the scenes of unbearable cruelty directed at women and children that we witnessed ourselves.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingUS Healthcare Workers Back From Gaza Tell Harris and Biden: ‘End This Madness Now’

JD Vance Doubles Down on Attack on ‘Childless Cat Ladies’

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Republican vice presidential nominee and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) speaks at a campaign rally at Radford University on July 22, 2024 in Radford, Virginia.
 (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Vance “meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children.”

After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by “childless cat ladies.”

Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on “The Megyn Kelly Show” that while he has “nothing against cats,” he meant what he said in terms of “the substance” of his argument.

Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), “that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children.”

The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.

Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children “don’t really have a direct stake in” the future of the country and therefore shouldn’t hold higher office.

In separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should “have more power” at the voting booth and that “if you don’t have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn’t get nearly the same voice.”

He also specifically categorized people who don’t have children as “bad” in an interview in 2021, saying the government should “reward the things that we think are good” and “punish the things that we think are bad,” with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.

While a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the senator’s taxation proposal was “basically no different” than the child tax credit supported by the Democratic Party, Democrats who have pushed for the credit have heralded its proven ability to slash child poverty rates and help families afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials, rather than viewing the tax savings as a way to reward people for procreating.

In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize “the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child” and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had “come out against the child tax credit”—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.

“I’m proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I’m a guy who wants to fight for you,” said Vance. “The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It’s built into their policy, it’s built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don’t think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem.”

Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety “hardcore environmentalists” and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.

In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family’s income.

Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.

As with his position that nonparents should be “punished” for not having children, “who else does ‘pro-child/family’ Vance think should ‘face consequences and reality’ by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?” asked writer Alheli Picazo. “Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest.”

University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test “empirically” Vance’s claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.

“But I haven’t heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids,” she said, “like reducing childcare and tuition costs.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingJD Vance Doubles Down on Attack on ‘Childless Cat Ladies’

Starmer suspends MPs who voted to scrap the two-child benefit cap

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Image of Keir Starmer and a poor child.
Zionist Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/starmer-suspends-mps-who-voted-to-scrap-the-two-child-benefit-cap

Union leaders condemn the Prime Minister’s ‘disgraceful’ decision

SIR KEIR STARMER has been condemned by union leaders for suspending seven Labour MPs for voting to scrap the two-child benefit cap, as independents including Jeremy Corbyn vowed to work with them to offer a “real alternative.”

Leaders of fire, education, civil service, bakeries and mail unions hit out at the Prime Minister’s “disgraceful” and “completely wrong” decision as they joined thousands backing a grassroots petition calling for their reinstatement.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, ex-shadow business secretary Rebecca Long Bailey, Apsana Begum, Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne, Zarah Sultana and Imran Hussain were kicked out of the Parliamentary Labour Party for six months for backing an SNP amendment calling for the cap to be scrapped on Tuesday night.

Ms Sultana, MP for Coventry South, suggested she was the victim of a “macho virility test” today.

“This isn’t a game … this is about people’s lives,” she added.

“I slept well knowing that I took a stand against child poverty that is affecting 4.3 million people in this country and it is the right thing to do and I am glad I did it.”

MP for Poplar and Limehouse Ms Begum said: “Labour’s own 11 affiliated unions support the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap; there’s popular support among the Labour Party membership to see the cap lifted.”

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By disciplining MPs for voting to pull children out of poverty, Keir Starmer has shown us who he really is Owen Jones

Labour will say this is just a matter of party discipline, but it is a clear demonstration of the government’s priorities

The Labour leadership has told you who it is, over and over again: it is time to believe it. Keir Starmer has suspended seven Labour MPs because they voted to overturn a Tory policy which imposes poverty on children. Sure, another tale will be spun: that by voting for the Scottish National party’s amendment to abolish the two-child benefit cap, the seven undermined the unity of the parliamentary Labour party and were duly disciplined. But that is nonsense.

Such parliamentary rebellions are scattered through our democratic history, and are accepted almost as a convention of government. Boris Johnson suspended multiple Brexit rebels in 2019 and it was rightly seen as an aberration. He did not, for example, exact the same punishment when five Tory MPs backed a Labour motion extending free school meals in 2020. When it comes to Labour history, even Tony Blair never resorted to such petty authoritarianism. Forty-seven Labour MPs rebelled over a cut to the lone parent benefit in 1997 – none had the whip removed.

This episode tells us many things. Firstly, it completely undermines Starmer’s slogan of choice: “country before party”. Starmer knows a policy devised by George Osborne to prevent parents from claiming benefits for a third or fourth child is cruel and fails on its own terms. When Starmer stood for leader, he promised to scrap the limit. After all, it imposes poverty on 300,000 kids, and drives another 700,000 further into hardship. Fifty-nine per cent of families affected have at least one parent in work – like the care workers, supermarket workers and cleaners applauded by politicians on porches and balconies during the pandemic. Research has found that it does not increase employment levels, and may actually make it harder to find work, while having no impact on family size. Charities have identified it as one of the single biggest generators of poverty in Britain.

It is hard to imagine Starmer is unaware of the fact that Osborne devised the policy to stoke public hostility towards and create a Victorian caricature of the undeserving, overbreeding poor. No decent society punishes children for choices they have not made and parents should not be punished for having more children. In Britain in 2024, kids turn up to schools with bowed legs and heart murmurs because of malnourishment, but a vast cost is also imposed on society as the scarring effect of poverty produces lasting lower productivity and employment levels.

Starmer knew this when he told the BBC almost exactly a year ago that he would retain this wicked Tory policy. He made the commitment to sound tough. Contrast with how he genuflects before powerful interests such as the Murdoch empire. By endorsing the two-child benefit cap, Starmer decided to gain partisan advantage, rather than fix an injustice afflicting his country. Party first, country second. Or rather, to be specific: playing politics with the lives of our most vulnerable children.

There isn’t the money available, we are told. The price tag is £1.7bn, a pittance given annual government expenditure is £1.2tr. According to the Sunday Times rich list, the 350 wealthiest British households have a combined fortune of £795bn: is leaving their taxes at the same level more important than parents skipping hot meals to feed their little ones? When Starmer told Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the UK would give Ukraine £3bn a year “for as long as it takes”, he acknowledged there is money available for what the government considers a priority. This Labour government simply does not regard child poverty as a priority.

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Continue ReadingStarmer suspends MPs who voted to scrap the two-child benefit cap