Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

If there’s going to be a ceasefire why do this?

The costs of delaying a vote on the bipartisan national security supplemental rise every day.

This bill would arm Ukraine, invest in our defense industrial base, help Israel defend itself against Hamas, and get more humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.

Let's get it done.

— President Biden (@POTUS) February 27, 2024

'defend itself against Hamas'

Once again, where the fuck were you guys on Oct 7th?

funding Hamas, duh

If there’s going to be a ceasefire why do this?

Because Biden is explicitly rejecting Netanyahu's line that Israel is helpless to defend itself against Hamas and faces murder and expulsion of its population unless it re-occupies Gaza. (I don't think that's a line most Israelis really believe, I'm not sure even Netanyahu himself believes it, but he's put himself in a position where he can't abandon it.) Biden is saying: don't bullshit me you can't survive having a Palestinian state on your borders, you can and you eventually will, the question is what happens on the way there.

(I don't think that's a line most Israelis really believe,

I'm already seeing reports today that the ceasefire isn't remotely likely with the WH clarifying that Biden's comments were "optimistic" rather than based on anything real (https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/27/israel-hamas-talks-no-deal-00143731).

Seems like the genocide-supporting status quo will continue without meaningful pushback from the US, and the chances that US weapons are used to slaughter Palestinians in Rafah are quite high. If the Rafah invasion happens, will Israel pay any price vis-a-vis US support? Doesn't look like it to me.

"More than 100 Palestinians have been killed and some 700 others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on hundreds waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City, health officials say, as the besieged enclave faces an unprecedented hunger crisis."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/29/dozens-killed-injured-by-israeli-fire-in-gaza-while-collecting-food-aid

unbearable news

Unforgiveable, now and forever

yes but do you condemn hamas

So out of character for the most moral and ethical army the world has ever known.

we've also passed 30,000 killed now. and I just read that aid has dropped by 50% *since* the ICJ ruling

Biden says killing of more than 100 Palestinians near aid trucks will complicate ceasefire talks

He's all heart this guy.

The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said earlier today that more than 25,000 women and children had been killed by Israel since 7 October 2023

I think this is actually more than Hamas claim. Has he told Biden this?

Really moved by these photos

Palestinians performing Friday prayers on the ruins of "Al-Farouq Mosque” in Rafah that was destroyed by the occupation pic.twitter.com/UxVXTaPRiA

— deeeeeee (@revolutionaryem) March 1, 2024

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147217

The UN has found “clear and convincing” evidence of sexual violence both against hostages and on October 7. I don’t really want to keep revisiting this except that the denialism still runs strong, including the recent focus on the Times reporting as a way of discrediting the actual events. I continue to find this tendency disgusting and revolting.

It’s horrible but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t any sexual violence. Soldiers have been this way for thousands of years. e.g. https://m.jpost.com/israel-news/article-691641

Not that it makes it “better” but that report was primarily about sexual assaults within the military (as opposed to as a weapon) which, unfortunately yes you find in ever military.

maybe I didn't make it clear in my posts, but the reason I focused on the Times reporting is because absolutely bungling reporting on sexual violence makes it harder for good reporting on sexual violence to break through

So the UN are good now?

This is like a web comic

Seems like a solid, detailed thread on the UN report. This thread notes a number of gaps in evidence, testimony, and two unfounded allegations. Alongside other allegations with reasonable grounds.

U.N. report on Oct. 7 sexual violence finds reasonable grounds to believe that victims were raped in at least three locations that day, all related to the assault on the Nova music festival and the attempt by victims to escape: https://t.co/tikVuiveTx pic.twitter.com/SnZjxTEaQf

— Evan Hill (@evanhill) March 4, 2024

I can only see the first post so I don’t know what the purported “gaps” are.

from the report:

"55. As a result of the aforementioned challenges, it must be noted that the information gathered by the mission team was in a large part sourced from Israeli national institutions. This is due to the absence of United Nations entities operating in Israel, as well as the lack of cooperation by the State of Israel with relevant United Nations bodies with an investigative mandate. Nevertheless, the mission team took every step, in line with UN methodology, to mitigate issues of source reliability before drawing conclusions within the scope of this report."

Sorry, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

Basically Israel did not allow them to interview victims.

And the videos they were able to review did not show any sexual violence.

Going to tap the fucking sign and tell all you cancers trying to pretend there was no sexual violence - which would be a first for any conflict - to shut the fuck up already.

I don’t give a fuck about the NYT report or whatever standards of proof a bunch of men on ilx think need to be met to their satisfaction. This is a fucking disgusting line of discussion and you should all be ashamed of how you’re coming across right now.

mojo dojo casas house (gyac)
Posted: 9 December 2023 at 17:08:53
Independent verification of sexual violence is nearly impossible in the circumstances. It’s usually wiser to assume any such statistics are underestimated, if anything. In the conflict in the eastern Congo, the percentage of women and children said to have experienced sexual violence from militants is exorbitant.
…

ty

Also, of course it was gathered by Israeli national institutions, it happened in Israel.

It would literally be the first conflict in human history to have no sexual violence.

Basically Israel did not allow them to interview victims.

― President Keyes, Tuesday, March 5, 2024 10:59 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The report itself makes it pretty clear that a lot of the likely victims are dead, not sure why this continues to be so hard to comprehend when it has been pointed out repeatedly

My read on all of this is that: there was likely sexual assault, but also it will probably be impossible to ascertain the extent of it.

Because of this it leaves room for unwarranted speculation, and many sides can play with it to their 'advantage', which is either justifying Israel's actions since Oct 7th or downplaying what happened on that day.

xp

Basically Israel did not allow them to interview victims.

― President Keyes, Tuesday, March 5, 2024 10:59 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The report itself makes it pretty clear that a lot of the likely victims are dead, not sure why this continues to be so hard to comprehend when it has been pointed out repeatedly

My read on all of this is that: there was likely sexual assault, but also it will probably be impossible to ascertain the extent of it.

Because of this it leaves room for unwarranted speculation, and many sides can play with it to their 'advantage', which is either justifying Israel's actions since Oct 7th or downplaying what happened on that day.

xp

I don't really want to use it to any "advantage" and I didn't really want to discuss it again at all except that unspecified "doubt" keeps getting smeared on it. If there was some conclusive evidence that the accounts were FABRICATED, then sure, bring that up. But there isn't any evidence they're fabricated, you're all just not satisfied with the evidence that it happened.

Sexual assault undoubtedly took place but, at the same time, no-one believes anything the Israeli government says about anything anymore.

I only comment on how this has gone down as I've seen it.

There isn't anything wrong with the thread on the report. It pulls out what is in there, and it's informative.

It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t justify what’s happening in Gaza even if the worst cases were true. You don’t have to pretend or insinuate that it didn’t happen because there was no evidence to your standard. It’s disgusting.
― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Tuesday, March 5, 2024 11:13 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right, this! I would not advocate starving the population of Gaza if there were 1000 rapes, or 10,000 rapes.

I don’t doubt that horrible things happened, including rape, which is abhorrent.

I also don’t believe a single word put out by any Israeli national institution.

The issue at hand also isn’t whether posters on this board think that any sexual violence doesn’t justify what’s happening in Gaza, but how these reports have been used and will continue to be used by the Israeli state and the US and its media proxies to justify its genocide

Sexual assault undoubtedly took place but, at the same time, no-one believes anything the Israeli government says about anything anymore.

^^^agree strongly.

Warfare is the embodiment of patriarchal enforcement so that means sexual violence on top of all the other violence.

Sorry, President Keyes is on the case going through the UN report looking for holes in the stories, like everyone genuinely interested in sexual assault taking place does

A posted asked what the supposed gaps were in that Twitter thread, so I answered the question. But go off as usually gyac.

Poster

I care about male posters on this site I continue to post on engaging in “well who can say if it ACTUALLY happened” and talking about how lying about rape makes people disbelieve those real sexual assault stories. It’s repulsive.

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Tuesday, March 5, 2024 11:39 AM (two hours ago)

I assume the last part of this is directed at me. And while I don't think that's an entirely fair summary of what I posted, I'd like to respond in what I hope is a constructive manner.

This is what I wrote earlier: "the reason I focused on the Times reporting is because absolutely bungling reporting on sexual violence makes it harder for good reporting on sexual violence to break through."

It is admittedly a very short post, and I regret not putting more thought into it. To my mind, I was making a narrow point about the responsibility news media have when investigating and reporting on sexual violence. Allowing someone with a clearly prejudicial agenda to frame and leverage this story to the benefit of their political cause is a violation of that responsibility, in my opinion. I did not intend to suggest that the Times handling this poorly should be taken as reflective of people in general relating stories of sexual assault. But I am aware of this pernicious feature of rape culture, and I can see how what I wrote connects to it.

Ultimately, I very much take the point that the reporting is far less important than the fact of the assaults themselves, which are undeniable and as you, gyac, and suzy have said a recurring feature of war. On reflection, I let my personal frustration over the NYT's coverage of Gaza in general get the best of me. I apologize for minimizing the significance of such horror.

I hear you, thanks Rob .I appreciate it. I made the point harshly because that rhetoric is so utterly poisonous and can’t be separated from its place in the wider discussion of sexual assault.

That's absolutely fair and true (not that you need me to tell you, of course). Thank you very much for responding.

🚨The Israeli army killed Dr. Abdulkarim Al-Rekeb, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Khan Younis - #Gaza Strip

Dr. Abdulkarim has been treating the wounded and fulfilling his duty to assist pregnant women amidst the difficult circumstances of the genocide war for 152 days. pic.twitter.com/o0fns1pFKA

— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) March 6, 2024

jfc: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/middleeast/gaza-airdropped-aid-deaths-intl/index.html

At least five people were killed, and 10 others injured on Friday, when airdropped aid packages fell on them in the Al Shati camp west of Gaza City, according to a journalist on the scene.

Khader Al Zaanoun told CNN he witnessed the aid packages falling from planes over the Al Shati camp but cannot confirm which nation was behind the air drop.

Muhammad Al-Sheikh, Head of Emergency Care Department at Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City confirmed five people were killed in the incident.

The Israeli military transferred 70 orphan kids from Gaza who were at SOS orphanage to another in Bethlehem, West Bank, at the request of the German Gov.

However, Israeli fascist FM is angry about what happened, and Smotrich sees offering “mercy” to orphaned children as evil. pic.twitter.com/smYNeSotmJ

— Khalil Sayegh (@KhalilJeries) March 12, 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68513408

Palestinian medical staff in Gaza have told the BBC they were blindfolded, detained, forced to strip and repeatedly beaten by Israeli troops after a raid at their hospital last month.

Ahmed Abu Sabha, a doctor at Nasser hospital, described being held for a week in detention, where, he said, muzzled dogs were set upon him and his hand was broken by an Israeli soldier.

His account closely matches those of two other medics who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-torture?

Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison "told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns," the group said.

The former detainees said groups of 10-20 Israeli civilians were brought in and allowed to record torture sessions in which the men, stripped nearly naked, were beaten with metal batons, electrocuted, and had hot water poured over their heads. The ex-prisoners said some of the Israelis laughed while filming their torture.

It just gets worse from there.

every helicopter, every hellfire missile, comes straight from the USA. this is an israeli-US war to exterminate the palestinian people as if they were insects. no one will ever forget this. ever. israel will never, ever live it down. they are sowing the seeds for a reckoning that will take many, many jewish lives and palestinian lives and others. it’s disgusting and shameful and beyond any justification.