… on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing

Tag: torture

  • Death toll of Gaza’s health workers crosses 1,000

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

    Palestinian Red Crescent crews mourn fellow paramedics Haitham Tubasi and Suhail Hassouna, killed by Israeli forced (Photo via PRCS)

    A new report from the Palestinian Ministry of Health warns that over 1,000 health workers in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October 2023. Meanwhile, a severe shortage of essential hygiene supplies continues to exacerbate the health crisis

    Israel has killed 1,151 workers in Gaza’s healthcare system since October 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Among the dead are 260 nurses, 184 health associates, 165 physicians, and 76 pharmacists, along with hundreds of management and support staff. While most of the victims’ names have been confirmed by health authorities, over 150 confirmations are still pending due to Israel’s refusal to release the martyrs’ bodies.

    In addition to those killed, hundreds of health workers remain imprisoned, where they face abuse and torture, as documented by international organizations. Ziad Muhammad Al-Dalu, a physician from Al-Shifa Hospital, was among those who died in Israeli custody, as reported by the Ministry of Health. His death serves as yet another example of Israel’s deliberate targeting of Gaza’s healthcare workers and infrastructure, actions that violate international humanitarian law.

    Read more: Palestinian health workers in Gaza describe torture and abuse in Israeli detention

    The ongoing attacks on healthcare have left tens of thousands of people with life-altering injuries. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 25% of those injured between October 2023 and July 2024 have suffered burns, severe limb injuries, or amputations, with no access to rehabilitation services. Dozens of physiotherapists were killed in the attacks, and inpatient rehabilitation services have been shut down for months. “Even the most essential assistive devices, like wheelchairs and crutches, are lacking due to the restricted flow of aid,” the WHO said.

    Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid continues to choke Gaza’s healthcare system. At the moment, one of the most urgent problems is the shortage of soap and detergents. With the cost of a small bar of soap reaching USD 10—a price that could buy approximately 2 kilograms of soap in Germany—many families in Gaza are unable to afford basic hygiene supplies. “A family relying on cash-for-work income would spend 60% of the unskilled income on consumable hygiene products,” warned organizations monitoring water and sanitation in Gaza.

    With soap being an omnipresent product, it might be difficult to imagine how severe the effects of a shortage might be, particularly for children. Health and hygiene officials estimate that adequate access to soap in the Gaza Strip could reduce respiratory infections by 20% and diarrheal diseases by up to 40%. This would potentially prevent illness in at least one in three children currently suffering from diarrhea. However, humanitarian organizations estimate that delivering the 5 million soap bars needed each month to meet demand in Gaza is basically impossible under the existing restrictions.

    Read more: Israel targets health workers in the West Bank, obstructs polio campaign in Gaza

    Despite this situation, Gaza recently completed the first phase of its polio vaccination campaign, with an 87% coverage rate among children—just below the 90% benchmark. The campaign is set to resume in the coming weeks, but incidents of Israeli forces obstructing access to those taking part in it persist, jeopardizing future public health efforts.

    As winter approaches, the need for essential medicines, hygiene supplies, and nutritious food in Gaza becomes even more urgent. Concerns about potential floods and worsening living conditions highlight once again the critical need for an immediate ceasefire and rebuilding of the health system.

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

  • Amnesty War Crimes Probe Exposes Israel’s ‘Wanton Destruction’ in Gaza

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    Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

    A Palestinian woman surveys the destruction by Israeli forces of her home and neighborhood in Khuza’a, which is located near Gaza’s border with Israel, on November 25, 2023. (Photo: Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    “The creation of any ‘buffer zone’ must not amount to the collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians who lived in these neighborhoods,” warned one Amnesty campaigner.

    Amnesty International said Thursday that the Israeli military should be investigated for the “war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment” over its destruction of entire communities along Gaza’s border with Israel.

    “Using bulldozers and manually laid explosives, the Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighborhoods, including homes, schools, and mosques,” the London-based rights group said in a new investigation.

    Amnesty analyzed satellite imagery, as well as photos and videos posted online by invading Israel Defense Forces troops between October and May, and found that the IDF has cleared wide swathes of land up to 1.2 miles (1.8 km) wide along Gaza’s eastern border.

    “In some videos, Israeli soldiers are seen posing for pictures or toasting in celebration as buildings are demolished in the background,” the report states.

    Israeli forces laid waste to much of Khuza’a in Khan Younis governate, under the pretext that Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel from the town on October 7.

    Salem Qudeih, a teacher who lived in Khuza’a about a mile from the border, told Amnesty that “around my family home we had a three dunam (0.7 acre) orchard full of fruit trees. They were all destroyed. Only an apple tree and a rose were left.”

    “I had bees and produced honey. All of it is gone now,” he added. “Out of the 222 houses of my relatives in the area, only about a dozen remain. My home—where I lived with my wife, my five daughters, and one son—was completely destroyed.”

    Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty’s senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, said in a statement: “The Israeli military’s relentless campaign of ruin in Gaza is one of wanton destruction. Our research has shown how Israeli forces have obliterated residential buildings, forced thousands of families from their homes, and rendered their land uninhabitable.”

    “Our analysis reveals a pattern along the eastern perimeter of Gaza that is consistent with the systematic destruction of an entire area,” she continued. “These homes were not destroyed as the result of intense fighting. Rather, the Israeli military deliberately razed the land after they had taken control of the area.”

    “The creation of any ‘buffer zone’ must not amount to the collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians who lived in these neighborhoods,” Guevara-Rosas added. “Israel’s measures to protect Israelis from attacks from Gaza must be carried out in conformity with its obligations under international law, including the prohibition of wanton destruction and of collective punishment.”

    “The Israeli military deliberately razed the land after they had taken control of the area.”

    Other experts—including United Nations officials and scholars—have previously highlighted what Robert Pape, a U.S. military historian and University of Chicago professor, described as “one of the most intense civilian punishment campaigns in history.”

    In the 335 days since October 7, Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 145,000 Palestinians in Gaza while forcibly displacing almost all of the embattled strip’s 2.3 million people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and other structures, according to Palestinian and international officials. Rebuilding after Israel’s obliteration of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure is expected to cost over $18.5 billion, or nearly Palestine’s entire annual gross domestic product.

    Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Meanwhile, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes including extermination.

    “International humanitarian law, which applies in situations of armed conflict, including during military occupation, is comprised of rules whose central purpose is to limit, to the maximum extent feasible, human suffering in times of armed conflict,” Amnesty explained Thursday.

    The group noted that under the Fourth Geneva Convention, “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly,” is a war crime.

    Additionally, the treaty bans collective punishment of civilians, stating that “no protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed.”

    Amnesty has repeatedly accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza and has urged the ICC to open investigations into multiple “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate” IDF massacres, as well as torture and other alleged human rights violations.

    Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under a CC licence.

  • ‘Insane Torture’: Israeli Soldiers Confirm Horrific Abuse of Palestinians at Sde Teiman

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

    Palestinians imprisoned at Sde Teiman are shackled and blindfolded 24 hours a day and are forced to sit still and silent in painful positions for hours on end. (Photo: Whistleblower)

    “Teeth were broken, bones were broken,” said one soldier. “You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity,” said another.

    An Israeli newspaper on Friday published interviews with Israel Defense Forces reservists and medical staff who witnessed the “day-to-day torture” of Palestinian prisoners at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert, where dozens of detainees have died and others were allegedly raped.

    The Israelis described seeing torture and abuse of Palestinians detained in Sde Teiman, who included everyone from Hamas fighters to innocent civilians, and ranged in age from children to octogenarians.

    “We said, ‘It’s torture.’ But you don’t get into it; you change the subject immediately.”

    “What’s happening there is total dehumanization. You don’t really relate to them as if they’re real human beings,” said one public hospital physician who worked at Sde Teiman. “In the end it’s no less than torture. There are ways to administer even poor treatment, or even to torture a person, without crushing cigarettes on them.”

    One female former medical staffer said that “the place was totally unimaginable, I had never considered anything like it.”

    “My first thought was: What have I done?” she said, describing prisoners being forced to relieve themselves in diapers and take their meals through straws.

    “The conditions there were described as torture,” she added. “Maybe. In many senses, yes, I agree with that. Maybe even insane torture.”

    A 37-year-old male reservist said some of the worst abuse was committed by members of Force 100, the unit of the nine Israelis recently arrested for allegedly gang-raping a Sde Teiman prisoner.

    “They took… guys aside and really laid into them,” he said. “I think that each time teeth were broken, bones were broken… And there was also a dog.”

    Former Sde Teiman prisoners have described dogs attacking and performing “vile acts” on them.

    Another IDF reservist said that “when you come to the camp, the first thing that hits you is the smell… of dozens of people who have been sitting in close quarters for more than a month in the same clothes and in insane heat.”

    “They let them shower for a few minutes around twice a week, but I don’t remember ever seeing that they gave them a change of clothes, in any case not on my shifts,” he added.

    The Haaretz interviewees said that much of the abuse occurred in the open.

    “It wasn’t something that was done in the dark,” the 37-year-old reservist said. “Everyone saw what was going on… It’s not something that was done behind the back of the commander of the camp.”

    “Most of the guys were just fine with what was happening,” he continued. “There were some who were a little bothered by it, and there were others who were bothered by it at the start and then they toed the line with the system.”

    “There were people who in conversations suddenly mentioned the word ‘torture,’” he added. “And then we said, ‘It’s torture.’ But you don’t get into it; you change the subject immediately.”

    Some of those interviewed by Haaretz expressed misgivings about what they did or saw at Sde Teiman.

    “When I was there, I wrestled with myself about whether to stay on and try to do the right thing, the best I could as a moral person, or whether I should just get up and declare that I refused to take part in it,” said one male reservist and student. “I came out with a heavy feeling of guilt.”

    Another reservist said, “The more distance I have from the place, the more my eyes have opened up.”

    “What most disturbed me was to see how easily and how quickly ordinary people can disconnect themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes when they’re in the midst of a shocking human situation,” he added.

    There were also rare moments of mercy.

    “Sometimes the military police gave the minors candy, like in the evening, before sleep,” the 37-year-old reservist said. “One time a detainee started to cry. He was older, 60 years old. So the duty officer tried to speak to him and cheer him up a little.”

    But more often, guards were “filled with rage,” said one reservist, who added that “there’s a desire for revenge.”

    “What most disturbed me was to see how easily and how quickly ordinary people can disconnect themselves and not see the reality right in front of their eyes.”

    One reservist said that “there was a female officer who gave us a briefing on the day we arrived. She said, ‘It will be hard for you. You’ll want to pity them, but it’s forbidden. Remember that they aren’t people.”

    “You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity in a second, how easy it is to come up with justifications for treating people as if they’re not people,” he added.

    One 27-year-old female reservist said that upon arriving at Sde Teiman—where she was welcomed with popcorn and cotton candy—she was alarmed to find that “good people whom I know talked about being cruel and abusive to people, like they were talking about something routine.”

    “The dehumanization frightened me,” she said. “I couldn’t understand how a group of young people who were around me every day underwent such a dangerous process in such a short time.”

    Another reservist said that some Sde Teiman staff—especially the volunteers—were “sadists” who “really enjoy beating up Arabs.”

    The Haaretz interviews add to a growing body of evidence of torture and other war crimes perpetrated by Israelis against Palestinian prisoners at Sde Teiman and other lockups.

    Former Palestinian detainees and Israeli personnel have described beatings, rape and sexual torture by male and female soldiers, routine amputations due to constant shackling, burnings, electrocutions, attacks by dogs, ice-water dousings, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, constant loud music, and other abuse.

    The Israeli military is investigating the deaths of at least 36 Sde Teiman detainees, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.

    On Friday, Alice Jill Edwards, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, said that “there are no circumstances in which sexual torture or sexualized inhuman and degrading treatment can be justified.”

    “I am troubled by recent attempts by Israeli citizens—including reportedly one member of Parliament—to intervene violently after the arrests of soldiers on these abuse charges,” she said of the recent storming of Sde Teiman and another base by a far-right mob in response to the arrests of the alleged rapists.

    “Criminal proceedings into all allegations must proceed unhindered,” Edwards added. “No one is above the law. No one is immune from prosecution for torture.”

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

  • 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). 

  • 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.”

    “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).