atrocities
UN human rights office ‘appalled’ at rape and execution of women and girls in Gaza
‘Credible’ reports of war crimes against Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers detailed in UN OHCHR statement – yet ignored by western ‘msm’
The horrific treatment of women and girls by Israeli soldiers – including rape and execution – has been condemned by the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in a damning statement today from the ‘Special Procedures’ group of human rights experts, saying that the actions of the IDF are likely to amount to prosecutable war crimes.
The statement says that the group:
expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Palestinian women and girls have reportedly been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members, including their children, according to information received.
“We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the experts said.
The experts expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October. Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.
“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.
The experts expressed concern that an unknown number of Palestinian women and children, including girls, have reportedly gone missing after contact with the Israeli army in Gaza. “There are disturbing reports of at least one female infant forcibly transferred by the Israeli army into Israel, and of children being separated from their parents, whose whereabouts remain unknown,” they said.
“We remind the Government of Israel of its obligation to uphold the right to life, safety, health, and dignity of Palestinian women and girls and to ensure that no one is subjected to violence, torture, ill-treatment or degrading treatment, including sexual violence,” the experts said.
They called for an independent, impartial, prompt, thorough and effective investigation into the allegations and for Israel to cooperate with such investigations.
“Taken together, these alleged acts may constitute grave violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, and amount to serious crimes under international criminal law that could be prosecuted under the Rome Statute,” the experts said. “Those responsible for these apparent crimes must be held accountable and victims and their families are entitled to full redress and justice,
While Israel’s atrocity propaganda claiming ‘systematic’ use of rape as a weapon of war have been characterised by an absence of evidence and a demand to be believed regardless how lurid and unfeasible the claims have been, and have quickly collapsed under scrutiny – yet have been propagated by western media and governments anyway – the UN experts’ sober claims carry weight and a call for serious investigation, but has been entirely ignored so far by the UK and US ‘mainstream’ media:
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UK exclusive: Hamas issues statement about events of 7 October raid
Group’s denial of Israeli claims and description of mass killing of Israelis by IDF fits with evidence and witness testimonies
Hamas breaks through Israeli border fence on 7 October
Hamas, the government of Gaza and resistance group – designated terrorists by the UK, US and other western governments – has issued a statement about the background and events of its 7 October raid into Israel, countering the ‘atrocity propaganda’ that Israel has used to try to justify its genocide and other war crimes against Palestinian civilians, including tens of thousands of children and women murdered and around double the number wounded and maimed.
The statement has been ignored by the UK and other so-called ‘mainstream’ media. It includes the historical and political background of Israel’s decades-long apartheid and oppression of the Palestinian people, a detailed account of its aims and actions on the day targeting military personnel and installations, refutation of Israeli claims – and a call for a full and transparent international investigation – along with a summary of its own political aims.
On the events of 7 October, it reminds readers of the testimonies of survivors and hostages about the civil treatment they received from Hamas fighters and of the now common knowledge – of course ignored by the UK media, but not by their Israeli counterparts – of the ‘immense’ (the IDF’s own description) ‘friendly fire’ deaths inflicted on Israeli citizens by Israeli tanks, helicopters and troops, as well as informing readers of the deaths of sixty Israeli hostages to IDF bombs and shells in Gaza.
The briefing, which was forwarded to Skwawkbox, via Flavio Centofanti, a UK-based activist for Palestinian rights, from renowned Palestinian academic Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, who, after a long career in the US, now teaches at Bethlehem University and runs the Palestinian Museum of Natural History, reads:
In light of the Israeli fabricated accusations and allegations over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 and its repercussions, we in the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas clarify
the following:
- Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7 targeted the Israeli military sites, and sought to arrest the enemy’s soldiers to pressure on the Israeli authorities to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails through a prisoners exchange
deal. Therefore, the operation focused on destroying the Israeli army’s Gaza Division, the Israeli military sites stationed near the Israeli settlements around Gaza.- Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters. We reiterate that the Palestinian resistance was fully disciplined and committed to the Islamic values during the operation and that the Palestinian fighters only targeted the occupation soldiers and those who carried weapons against our people. In the meantime, the Palestinian fighters were keen to avoid harming civilians despite
the fact that the resistance does not possess precise weapons. In addition, if there was any case of targeting civilians; it happened accidently and in the course of the confrontation with the occupation forces.
Since its establishment in 1987, the Hamas Movement committed itself to avoiding harm to civilians. After Zionist criminal Baruch Goldstein in 1994 committed a massacre against Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in occupied Hebron City, the Hamas Movement announced an initiative to avoid civilians the brunt of fighting by all parties, but the Israeli occupation rejected it and even did not give any comment on it. The Hamas Movement also repeated such calls several times, but received by a deaf ear from the Israeli occupation which continued its deliberate targeting and killing of Palestinian civilians.- Maybe some faults happened during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’s implementation due to the rapid collapse of the Israeli security and military system, and the chaos caused along the border areas with Gaza.
As attested by many, the Hamas Movement dealt in a positive and kind manner with all civilians who have been held in Gaza, and sought from the earliest days of the aggression to release them, and that’s what happened during the week-long humanitarian truce where those civilians were released in exchange of releasing Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails.- What the Israeli occupation promoted of allegations that the Al-Qassam Brigades on Oct. 7 were targeting Israeli civilians are nothing but complete lies and fabrications. The source of these allegations is the Israeli official narrative and no independent source proved any of them. It is a well-known fact that the Israeli official narrative had always sought to demonize the Palestinian resistance, while also legalizing its brutal aggression on Gaza.
Here are some details that go against the Israeli allegations:Video clips taken on that day – Oct. 7 – along with the testimonies by Israelis themselves that were released later showed that the Al-Qassam Brigades’ fighters didn’t target civilians, and many Israelis were killed by the Israeli army and police due to their confusion.
was fully denied including by the Hamas Movement. A report by the Mondoweiss news website on Dec. 1, 2023, among others, said there is lack of any evidence of “mass rape” allegedly perpetrated by Hamas members on Oct. 7 and that Israel used such allegation “to fuel the genocide in Gaza.”- It is also a matter of fact that a number of Israeli settlers in settlements around Gaza were armed, and clashed with Palestinian fighters on Oct. 7. Those settlers were registered as civilians while the fact is they were armed men fighting alongside the Israeli army.
- When speaking about Israeli civilians, it must be known that conscription applies to all Israelis above the age of 18 – males who served 32 months of military service and females who served 24 months – where all can carry and use arms. This is based on the Israeli security theory of an “armed people” which turned the Israeli entity into “an army with a country attached.”
- The brutal killing of civilians is a systematic approach of the Israeli entity, and one of the means to humiliate the Palestinian people. The mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza is a clear evidence of such approach.
- The Al Jazeera news channel said in a documentary that in one month of the Israeli
aggression on Gaza, the daily average killing of Palestinian children in Gaza was 136, while the average of children killing in Ukraine – in the course of the Russian-Ukrainian war – was one child every day.- Those who defend the Israeli aggression do not look at the events in an objective manner but rather go to justify the Israeli mass killing of Palestinians by saying there would be casualties among civilians when attacking the Hamas fighters. However, they would not use such assumption when it comes to the Al-Aqsa Flood event on Oct. 7.
- We are confident that any fair and independent inquiries will prove the truth of our
narrative and will prove the scale of lies and misleading information in the Israeli side. This also includes the Israeli allegations regarding the hospitals in Gaza that the Palestinian resistance used them as command centers; an allegation that was not proven and was refuted by reports of many western press agencies.
The document is far more in accord with the available evidence than the claims of the Israeli regime – but it is Israel’s claims that are being amplified by western media, including the Guardian and the New York Times, despite the evidence. More will be published in the next day or so.
Mr Centofanti told Skwawkbox:
There has been a good deal of coverage by other news outlets including the Israeli media of evidence pointing to a large number of Israelis having been killed by their own forces on Oct 7th. Many of the claims of atrocities committed by Hamas originally made by Israel, such as those involving babies beheaded or baked in ovens have been dropped or debunked.
According to the journalist Jonathan Cook, the Israeli military itself has conceded that it had killed its own civilians “in immense and complex quantity” but that “it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents”. A lot of evidence points to the IDF’s indiscriminate use of tanks and helicopter gunships as the cause of many deaths. The fact that Israel revised its original figure of 1400 Israelis killed down to 1200 and then again to 1140 suggests that it was not sure who its own forces had killed. Its claims of systematic rape and torture have also been questioned as they are based on partisan and unreliable witnesses who have changed their stories several times.
We also know that the IDF have a strategy of using overwhelming and disproportionate force. And from the way they killed their own three hostages waving white flags that they are trigger-happy. Also, on Oct 7th they will have been in a state of panic. Finally, that the IDF have a rule called ‘Hannibal’ which they employ to prevent hostages being taken even if it means killing them.
All of this suggests that the version of events we have been given requires verification. Has The Guardian checked its sources to verify all the claims of atrocities made by Israel. If not, why does it routinely repeat the Israeli narrative without clarifying the source (Israel). For example, The Guardian routinely refers to what happened on Oct 7 as “Hamas’s atrocity against Israel”. This suggests that The Guardian is satisfied that all the claims made by Israel are correct. But if questions are being raised about the truth about what happened on Oct 7 even in the Israeli media, why has The Guardian not covered this story?
Not doing so is highly irresponsible and dangerous because it gives Israel continued moral justification and makes it complicit in prolonging the ongoing slaughter in Gaza.
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Video: released Israeli women say Hamas treated them like ‘queens’
Testimony of mother and daughter Hin and Ajam highights dishonesty of Israel’s already-discredited lies to the ICJ
Israel’s statements to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) yesterday were a fabric of already-discredited lies about supposed atrocities that even Israel’s own records make impossible – and completely ignored the many deaths caused by Israeli forces among their own people during the 7 October resistance raid.
At the centre of Israel’s lies was a litany of ‘atrocity porn’ of rapes, mutilations and beheaded babies – again, already debunked and contradicting the evidence – but the testimony of an Israeli mother and daughter, interviewed on TV after they were released by Hamas, undermines even further Israel’s lurid lies. Hin and Ajam told their Israeli TV interviewer that they were treated like ‘malkot’, queens – and that this is how Palestinian men treat women generally:
Unsurprisingly, this has not been shown on UK ‘mainstream’ TV. Hin and Ajam are not unique. Numerous women survivors of Israel’s ‘friendly fire’ and released hostages have told how they were treated courteously and well – and even that their captors put their own bodies between them and IDF bombs to protect them.
By contrast, under Israel’s ‘Hannibal directive’, Israeli forces killed hundreds of their own citizens with missiles and tank shells, a number that the IDF itself described as ‘immense’.
It is to be hoped that the ICJ judges are not as ignorant as the insulting Israeli statements take them to be.
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Starmer’s guest Herzog signs shells to fire on Gaza
Genocide-mongering Israeli president warmly welcomed and presented with gifts by right-wing Starmer and Labour Friends of Apartheid
Israeli president Isaac Herzog has been photographed signing shells to be fired upon Gazan civilians. Herzog, like other Israeli government figures, has said that there are no innocents being killed in Israel’s wanton slaughter of Palestinian civilians:
It’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.
So closely identified is Herzog with Israel’s war crimes that his comments were cited byexpert Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, as an example of the Israeli regime’s expression of intent to commit that and other war crimes.
According to Euromed Monitor, Israel has so far killed 30,000 people in Gaza, well over half of them women and children. Approaching 60,000 more have been injured, many of them severely.
As Declassified‘s John McEvoy has pointed out, Herzog recently received a fawning welcome from ‘Labour’ ‘leader’ Keir Starmer – who left him a signed note in a copy of a book presented to him by Steve McCabe, the parliamentary chair of the so-called ‘Labour Friends of Israel’ (LFI).
Starmer and LFI are no friends of working-class people – but they can’t get enough of those eager for war crimes against the Palestinians.
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Video: Webbe ‘I will not be accomplice’ to war crimes, signs call for ICC Gaza investigation
Leicester East MP issues no-holds-barred speech; over 66,000 sign letter to International Criminal Court
Leicester East MP Claudia Webbe MP has signed a formal call to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute Israeli war crimes in Gaza.
And in a no-holds-barred Westminster Hall speech to MPs explaining her decision to put her name to the formal letter of complaint, she said that she ‘will not be an accomplice’ to the daily atrocities against Palestinian civilians:
Webbe was one of the first of more than 66,000 international lawmakers, civil society representatives and civilians to sign the official complaint asking on the ICC to investigate, prosecute and arrest Israeli government figures, including Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, for war crimes against the people of Gaza including genocide and crimes against humanity.
“‘Never again’ must mean never again for anyone”
In a statement today, Ms Webbe MP said:
I have signed a formal complaint to the International Criminal Court for Justice calling on them to investigate and prosecute the Israeli government for war crimes against the people of Palestine, including genocide and crimes against humanity.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has destroyed or severely damaged 60-70% of homes and public buildings – some estimates say 80-90% – and has killed more than 20,000 civilians, including at least 10,000 children, as well as maiming countless others, who are now forced to undergo amputations and other serious surgery without anaesthetic, in impossible conditions.
The death toll from bombs and missiles is horrifying, but the toll from starvation and disease is set to be even worse, with Israel only allowing a fraction of the aid into Gaza that its people need and the UN unable to distribute it effectively because so many of their trucks have been destroyed. More than 150 UN personnel have been killed.
Yet the Israeli government is blaming the UN for the situation and is using humanitarian aid as a weapon of war, while Israel’s ministers have even suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza and talk openly of ‘Nakba 2023’ – a repeat of the violent mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 – and Israeli troops have planted flags in the centre of flattened residential districts to stake their claim.
I have received well over 6,000 letters and emails from constituents calling for an immediate ceasefire and I am comforting too many who have lost family under the rubble and others desperately worried about their loved ones and friends in Gaza and I will not be silent. Collective punishment is a war crime, forcible transfer of the population is a war crime, indiscriminate bombing and the use of white phosphorus on civilians – now confirmed by Amnesty International – is a war crime. I will not be an accomplice.
I have signed the formal complaint to the International Criminal Court because there must be accountability for those responsible, and I have urged my colleagues in Parliament to do the same.
Never again must mean never again for anyone.
The formal letter of complaint to the ICC, which has been signed by hundreds of politicians globally as well as more than 66,000 others, is still open for readers to add their names here. Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Podemos Social Rights minister Ione Belarra Urteaga and a host of other global lawmakers have signed. Details of signatories can be found here.
Despite the huge number of signatures, the UK media appear determined to ignore the war crime prosecution call.
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