crimes against humanity

Western Media, Leaders Slammed for ‘Deafening’ Silence Over Israeli Torture Revelations

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

A leaked photograph obtained by CNN shows a blindfolded man with his arms over his head at the Sde Teiman detention facility. (Photo: CNN)

“Can you imagine the response if Palestinians were holding Israelis in mass rape camps and torturing them to death?” asked one critic.

Human rights defenders are calling out Western news outlets and political leaders for their conspicuous lack of coverage and vocalized condemnation after leaked video footage appeared to show Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian detainee in the notorious Sde Teiman prison and the release of a new report documenting systematic torture of prisoners held by Israel.

Earlier this week, Israel’s Channel 12 aired a video showing Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists assaulting a Palestinian man at Sde Teiman, which is often called “Israel’s Guantánamo.” The victim was reportedly hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage. In addition to torture, former Sde Teiman detainees have described rampant rape and sexual abuse, allegedly often committed by female soldiers.

Instead of avoiding the Sde Teiman rape story, Israeli media have aired an interview with one of the IDF suspects—who are being hailed as “heroes” by far-right Israelis including multiple Cabinet ministers—and panel discussions including one in which a journalist called for “institutionalized” rape of Palestinian prisoners. This, as Israeli leaders demanded an investigation of the rape video to find and punish whoever leaked the footage, and as Israeli lawmakers argue that it’s permissible to rape Palestinian prisoners.

Meanwhile, there has been very little coverage of Sde Teiman on U.S. broadcast media, which have come under fire for allowing Israeli officials to censor their coverage of the Gaza onslaught. This stands in stark contrast to the myriad—and sometimes outright false—reports of Hamas militants raping Israeli women during the October 7 attack, which have prompted embarrassing corrections.

“Can you imagine the response if Palestinians were holding Israelis in mass rape camps and torturing them to death? Every U.S. politician would condemn it, there would be congressional resolutions, countless CNN segments, and celebrity outrage,” Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi said Thursday on social media. “But the victims are just Palestinians.”

Dazed politics editor James Greig said on social media Wednesday that “it feels redundant to complain about double standards at this point but still, the contrast between the silence about Sde Teiman and the months of lurid, detailed, and at best factually dubious reporting published when Hamas was accused of sexual violence is extremely stark.”

Syrian British journalist Richard Medhurst wrote Thursday on social media that “the silence by mainstream media on the IDF’s rape culture is deafening.”

“These journalists are literally covering for the most violent form of rape, recorded on camera, and documented by doctors,” he added.

When there is coverage of alleged Israeli crimes in the U.S. media, it is often presented in a manner that casts doubt upon the veracity of Palestinian claims—which are increasingly beyond doubt amid an avalanche of evidence.

On Monday, asCommon Dreamsreported, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released a detailed report, ominously titled “Welcome to Hell,” which documented widespread torture and abuse of Palestinians across Israeli’s detention apparatus. The report found that “there is no room to doubt” that Israel’s torture methods are a systematic, organized policy of its prison authorities.

Israeli whistleblowers have described having to frequently amputate Sde Teiman detainees’ limbs due to damage from constant shackling. IDF officers have admitted that dozens of Palestinians have died at the prison. IDF soldiers allegedly murdered one detainee by shoving an electric baton in his anus. United Nations experts and the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem have confirmed what the latter described as the “systematic” torture of detainees “that amounts to a war crime and even a crime against humanity.”

Meanwhile, Israeli protesters have rallied for the right to rape Palestinians, and a far-right mob whose members included a Cabinet minister and multiple Knesset lawmakers stormed two military bases last month in an attempt to free the alleged IDF rapists after nine suspects were arrested.

Yet “there is still no international outcry,” journalists Lubna Masarwa and Peter Osborne wrote in a Middle East Eyeopinion piece published Friday. “This collective omerta from politicians and the media about Israel’s monstrous conduct is hard to comprehend, given that we are talking about systematic war crimes committed on a horrifying scale by a country already under investigation at the International Court of Justice for potential genocide.”

“Their silence amounts to complicity,” the authors continued. “As for Israel, the majority of the political and media classes do not appear to think there is much wrong in the torture and abuse of prisoners, with some ministers actively defending the abusers.”

“These are the signs of a very sick society indeed—one that has passed through an invisible barrier into savagery,” they added. “There are no red lines, no respect for international law, and no accountability. The silence of the West shows that we, too, have entered the same nightmare universe.”

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

Continue ReadingWestern Media, Leaders Slammed for ‘Deafening’ Silence Over Israeli Torture Revelations

US Rights Group Urges Media to Condemn Israel’s Killing of Journalists in Gaza

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

A funeral ceremony is held for Palestine TV correspondent Mohammed Abu Hatab, who was killed, along with his family members, in an airstrike on his home in Khan Yunis, Gaza on November 3, 2023. (Photo: Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“The only thing that can explain the shocking silence of American and international media professionals about the mass killing of their Palestinian colleagues is the decadeslong and systematic dehumanization of the Palestinian people.”

The largest U.S. Muslim advocacy group on Friday implored American and international media outlets to speak out against Israel’s killing of more than 100 journalists, almost all of them Palestinians, during the ongoing assault on Gaza.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) renewed its plea following Israeli airstrikes on the homes of Palestine TV journalist Tamim Ma’mmar and Al-Aqsa TV‘s Abdullah Al-Sousi. Ma’mmar was killed along with his wife and two of their children, while the other attack killed Al-Sousi and two of his nephews, according to Quds News Network.

“The only thing that can explain the shocking silence of American and international media professionals about the mass killing of their Palestinian colleagues is the decadeslong and systematic dehumanization of the Palestinian people, in which the lives of Palestinians have lesser or no value,” CAIR national communications director Ibrahim Cooper said in a statement.

“Journalists worldwide must begin to speak out about these killings and about the Israeli genocide in Gaza,” he added.

https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1821932693400981588?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1821932693400981588%7Ctwgr%5Eb50525bcbd64fb1a441b5d53fd2d2b071768fd5b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fisrael-killing-journalists

Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Its 308-day assault on Gaza has left more than 142,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to local and international officials.

Preliminary investigations by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists found that at least 113 media professionals—including 108 Palestinians, three Lebanese, and two Israelis—have been killed during the war, “making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.”

CPJ has condemned what it called an “apparent pattern of targeting journalists and their families,” noting cases in which media workers were killed while wearing press insignia and after being threatened by Israeli officials.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said this week that Israeli forces have killed 166 journalists since October.

In May, the Paris-based press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) filed a third complaint at the International Criminal Court alleging “war crimes against journalists in Gaza.”

RSF said it had “reasonable grounds for thinking that some of these journalists were deliberately killed and that the others were the victims of deliberate IDF attacks against civilians” and accused Israel of “an eradication of the Palestinian media.”

The following month, the Gaza Project—led by the Paris-based nonprofit Forbidden Stories—published a report detailing a “chilling pattern” of Israeli forces apparently targeting journalists during the war.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have called for official investigations into Israeli killing of journalists including an October 13 attack that killed 37-year-old Lebanese Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded half a dozen other journalists who were covering cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon.

Dylan Collins, an American deputy editor at Al Jazeera English, was wounded while administering first aid to Christina Assi, an Agence-France Presse journalist who was seriously wounded in the attack. Assi-one of whose legs was amputated—recently carried the Olympic torch in Paris.

CPJ president Jodie Ginsburg recently told Al Jazeera that the killing of journalists by Israeli forces “appears to be part of a broader strategy that aims to stifle the information coming out of Gaza.”

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

Continue ReadingUS Rights Group Urges Media to Condemn Israel’s Killing of Journalists in Gaza

Israeli Leaders Demand Probe of IDF Rape Video—To Find Out Who Leaked It

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

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks during a rally in Sderot, Israel on October 26, 2022. (Photo: Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)

“This is what Israelis rioted to protect, what the Knesset debated—the right to rape Palestinians,” said one critic.

While human rights groups called for an investigation of a leaked recording apparently showing Israel Defense Forces reservists gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military base and detention center, Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday also furiously demanded a probe of the video—not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked it.

Smotrich took to social media Wednesday to call for “an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them.”

Israeli media on Tuesday aired footage in which Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists are seen attacking a Palestinian man at Sde Teiman while trying to hide their actions with shields.

According to Israeli media reports, the victim was hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage.

Nine alleged assailants—who include members of Force 100, the military unit tasked with guarding Sde Teiman prisoners—were arrested last week in connection with the attack. A mob of far-right Israelis including senior government officials subsequently stormed two military bases in an attempt to free the suspects.

While many Israelis condemned the alleged rape, others rallied around the accused reservists. Smotrich described them as “heroic warriors.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called them “our best heroes.”

Far-right Israeli lawmaker Zvi Sukkot—who took part in last week’s riot—joined Smotrich in demanding an investigation of the video leak.

“Leaking and disclosure of investigative materials is a criminal offense that harms the proper legal process, the rule of law, public trust, and the principle of justice,” he said Wednesday.

Israeli media reported Wednesday that two of the accused reservists lied on polygraph tests when asked if they had sodomized the prisoner.

Numerous Israelis continued to express support for the accused rapists. Israel Today political reporter Yehuda Schlesinger said Wednesday on a popular morning show that “I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do to Hamas man.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1821121616094412908

“First of all, they deserve it,” Schlesinger said of the abuse at Sde Teiman and other Israeli military prisons. “It’s great revenge that we need to give them.”

“It’s just a shame that we don’t do it in an institutionalized way, as part of regulations for torture of prisoners,” he added, “because then the next guys who think about doing another October 7 will say, ‘Do you see what they’re doing to [us] in Israel?'”

Etan Nechin, the New York correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, accused the media of being the “main culprit” that “has normalized the most extreme voices, letting genocidal brutes, racists, and messianic zealots into Israeli’s TV sets.”

Some American media critics drew attention to the scant coverage of abuse at Sde Teiman in the U.S. corporate media.

“U.S. taxpayers continue to support this military and its torture camps,” Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote on social media. “How is this not front-page news?”

In the United States—which supports Israel’s war on Gaza with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a Wednesday press conference that “there ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee. Period.”

“It is appropriate that the IDF in this case, has announced an investigation, has arrested a number of people who are alleged to have been involved, and I won’t speak to the outcome of that investigation, but it ought to proceed swiftly,” Miller added.

Critics noted the IDF’s chronic failures to credibly investigate its alleged crimes. The Israeli rights group Yesh Din said in late 2022 that less than 1% of Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were indicted over the previous five years.

The Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday took up a petition by rights groups seeking to close Sde Teiman, where widespread—and sometimes deadly—torture has been reported. Last month, Israel’s High Court issued a conditional order seeking to shut down the prison in response to the flood of reports of torture there.

Former prisoners including children and Israeli whistleblowers at Sde Teiman—often called “Israel’s Guantánamo Bay”—have described rampant torture and abuse at the facility, which is used to imprison Palestinians captured in the Gaza Strip. According to their testimonies, prisoners have been raped, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, burned with cigarettes, severely beaten, starved, and subjected to 24-hour shackling sometimes leading to amputations.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said this week that at least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October.

More than 1,100 Israelis and others died during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, during which more than 240 other people were kidnapped. Israel’s response—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case—has left more than 142,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to local and international officials.

Smotrich suggested earlier this week that it is “moral and justified” to starve 2 million Palestinians to death. So far, at least dozens, mostly children, have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medical care in Gaza amid Israel’s crippling assault and siege.

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

Continue ReadingIsraeli Leaders Demand Probe of IDF Rape Video—To Find Out Who Leaked It

Israel continues to systematically massacre and starve Palestinians in Gaza

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Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

A man searches through the rubble after an airstrike in Nusreiat refugee camp in May. Photo: Xinhua

After 10 months, Israel continues to commit horrific atrocities against Palestinians, indifferent to international law

The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) launched several aerial attacks across Gaza on Thursday, August 8. At least 32 Palestinians have been killed and dozens of others were injured in the airstrikes, including children.

The airstrikes targeted Abdul Fattah Hamoud School and Al-Zahra School in Gaza City, in addition to several homes in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Another airstrike targeted a group of civilians in Zaytoun neighborhood southeast of Gaza City. The Israeli army falsely claimed that its forces targeted the schools due to being used as “hideouts” by Hamas resistance fighters.

Deadly airstrikes have been taking place on a daily basis in Gaza, while starvation has also been used as a weapon against Palestinians in the besieged strip. The United Nations reported on Monday, August 5, that the malnutrition levels among children in northern Gaza witnessed a 300% increase from May to July.

The United Nations deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq explained at a press briefing on Monday, August 5, that the United Nations humanitarian partners attributed the deterioration in nutrition conditions in Gaza strip to access constraints, shortages in essential supplies, limited availability of fresh produce and meat, poor water and sanitation services and spreading diseases.

Nevertheless, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the prevention of humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza strip, on Monday, as “justified and moral”. “We can’t, in the current global reality, manage a war. Nobody will let us cause 2 million civilians to die of hunger even though it might be justified and moral until our hostages are returned,” Smotrich said.

The European Union, France and the United Kingdom condemned Smotrich’s statement on Thursday, August 8. The statement was also denounced by the US administration on the same day. The Times of Israel quoted a US State Department spokesperson saying: “We are appalled by these comments and reiterate that this rhetoric is harmful and disturbing.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs decried Smotrich’s statement on Thursday, saying it is an “explicit admission of adopting and bragging about the policy of genocide.” Moreover, the ministry urged the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Smotrich.

Many people from Gaza have also been subjected to severe humiliation at the hands of Israeli forces, especially those who have been arrested and detained. On Wednesday, August 7, Israeli media outlets broadcasted a leaked video from surveillance cameras in Sde Teiman detention centre. The video showed a group of Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee from Gaza, while hiding themselves behind their shields. The victim shown in the video is believed to be the Palestinian detainee from Gaza, who was taken to hospital due to sustaining severe injuries in his rectum as a result of sexual assault.

An Israeli lawmaker from the ruling Likud party Hanoch Milwidsky was asked in a meeting last week whether it is justified “to insert a stick in a person’s rectum, is that legitimate?” Hanoch’s answer was: “Yes! If he is a Nukhba everything is legitimate to do him,” he answered, referring to Nukhba special forces with Hamas military wing Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), has described the video as “shocking.” OHCHR spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said in a statement: “These are shocking scenes and represent one of many instances of serious Israeli violations in recent months, including the mistreatment of Palestinian detainees, torture, sexual violence, and rape.” The US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller urged Israel to fully investigate the sexual abuse incident on Wednesday, calling for “zero tolerance” for perpetrators. However, despite the number of gross violations committed by Israel, the US government has still refused to leverage any pressure tactics against Israel to force it to change its siege on Gaza, namely cutting off aid and weapons shipments. Progressive organizations in the US and globally continue to demand the US end all aid to Israel and thus stop enabling its atrocities.

Original article by Aseel Saleh republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingIsrael continues to systematically massacre and starve Palestinians in Gaza

Top lawyer urges UK to halt arms sales to Israel following ICJ ruling

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Original article republished from Middle East Monitor under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.. Published on July 31, 2024, the article is still relevant.

Activists drop a banner from Westminster Bridge, calling on Labour leader Keir Starmer to say he’ll end arms sales to Israel if he becomes prime minister, on 3 June 2024, in London, Uk [Luca Marino]

A prominent lawyer who represented Palestine at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has called on the UK to stop selling arms to Israel in light of the court’s recent advisory opinion. Professor Philippe Sands KC, a member of Palestine’s legal team, has called on the new Labour government to comply with the ICJ ruling, which found Israel’s occupation and settlement policies in Palestinian territories to be illegal and found that Israel’s practice in the occupied territories amounted to the crime of apartheid.

The ICJ opinion, issued earlier this month, declared that UN member states have an obligation to neither recognise the occupation as lawful nor assist in its maintenance. Sands emphasised the significance of this ruling for the UK, stating: “The most immediate issue is the obligation in the advisory opinion on the states, which includes the United Kingdom, not to aid or assist in the maintenance of the current situation in the occupied territories of the West Bank, including [East] Jerusalem.”

He explained further: “That legal obligation precludes sales of military material which could be used directly or indirectly to assist Israel in maintaining its unlawful occupation of the occupied Palestinian territories.”

While ICJ advisory opinions are not directly binding on individual UN member states, Sands asserts that it will be “recognised as an authoritative statement of the law and one that the UN and its specialised agencies will follow as law.”

The lawyer also highlighted implications for trade, noting that, “Anything that is produced in the occupied territories, such as food, or that is sold there over the internet, is in principle subject to the international prohibition, if it can be said to aid or assist in the maintenance of the unlawful occupation.”

The ICJ ruling comes at a time when the UK is already under scrutiny regarding arms sales to Israel, particularly in light of Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians in Gaza. The apartheid state is also under investigation by the ICJ for the crime of genocide, the worst of all crimes against a people. The military offensive, launched in response to the 7 October cross-border incursion by Palestinian resistance groups, has claimed the lives of almost 40,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, and wounded 91,000 others. An estimated 10,000 Palestinians remain missing, presumed dead, under the rubble of their homes and other civilian infrastructure destroyed by Israeli bombs.

There has been widespread speculation about how the new Labour government will respond to the ICJ opinion, particularly concerning arms sales. Labour has recently stated that UK arms sales to Israel have been delayed as ministers review weapons potentially linked to war crimes in Gaza.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy has indicated that officials are conducting a “comprehensive review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law” and is considering banning certain arms sales to the country.

Sands also addressed the issue of Palestinian statehood, referencing the ICJ statement on “the realisation of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including its right to an independent and sovereign state.” He noted that while recognition of a state is ultimately a political decision, the UK remains part of a “small and diminishing group” that has not recognised Palestine as a state.

As the international community awaits the UK’s official response to the ICJ advisory opinion, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has stated that it is “considering it carefully before responding” and “respects the independence of the ICJ.”

Original article republished from Middle East Monitor under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.. Published on July 31, 2024, the article is still relevant.

UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party's support for and complicity in Israel's genocide of Gaza.
UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Continue ReadingTop lawyer urges UK to halt arms sales to Israel following ICJ ruling