hostages
Video: CNN investigation exposes Israeli concentration camps and torture
US broadcaster daren’t use the term, but it’s clear what they’re showing
An investigation by US news channel CNN has exposed Israel’s use of concentration camps, where Palestinian prisoners, mostly civilians, are routinely beaten, tortured, have bones and teeth smashed and are so inhumanely bound and forced into untenable physical positions that many have to have limbs amputated.
CNN calls these ‘detention camps’, but a viewing of the video makes the reality of what they are inescapable:
The discovery, aided by a whistleblowing soldier, adds to the seemingly endless tally of Israel’s war crimes. Meanwhile, the US and no doubt the UK are desperately pressuring the International Criminal Court (ICC) not to issue arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals.
The video also reveals that Israeli hospitals – against all norms and medical oaths – are refusing to treat wounded Palestinians. The victims of Israel’s mass murder in Gaza are, to a level of around 92 percent, civilians – more than two thirds of them women and children. Those held in these concentration camps are overwhelmingly likely to be civilians too – a fact confirmed by the eventual release of some after they have been brutalised, broken and maimed.
The ICC must not listen and must not delay – and warrants should also be issued for every politician in the UK and elsewhere who colludes in or covers for Israel’s genocide and innumerable other war crimes.
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Video: Israeli Knesset member mocked and called liar by UN-linked parliament gathering
Hard right advocate of ‘levelling’ Gaza derided for repeating debunked atrocity propaganda to 148th Assembly of Inter-Parliamentary Union
Danny Danon, a hard-right Likud member of Israel’s Knesset, has been derided as a liar and jeered by attendees at the 148th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), a UN-linked gathering of the world’s parliaments, which is taking place in Geneva.
Danon, who advocated for the ‘levelling’ of Gaza almost ten years before the Hamas raid on 7 October last year, blamed Hamas for Israel’s actions in Gaza, ignored the seventy-five years of illegal occupation and slaughter by Israel and regurgitated atrocity propaganda about child rapes and murders, which has been discredited for months – and was booed by delegates and angrily confronted by the Palestinian delegate, before being carpeted by Ireland’s representative for his ‘lots of lies’ on behalf of a ‘failed’ regime:
In 2013, Danon, an opponent of immigration from Africa to Israel – where discrimination against Black Jews is rife – advocated for punishment attacks against Palestinian civilians and infrastructure, including a suggestion that Israel “delete” one whole neighbourhood in Gaza in response for every rocket launched by the Palestinian resistance, an act of collective punishment that is a clear war crime under international law.
A year later, Danon advocated cutting off all electricity and fuel supplies to Gaza, prefiguring the blockade by Israel that has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into famine. A month later, Danon said that Israel should respond to the kidnapping of an IDF soldier by “levelling Gaza”. Since the resistance raid, he has been a prominent advocate for the ‘voluntary’ removal of all Palestinians from Gaza to other countries, yet he clearly thinks he has the right to demand obedience and belief from the global community.
The IDF has admitted that the number of its own people that it killed during the Hamas raid was ‘immense’ – an admission ignored entirely by the UK media. Israel has murdered over 40,000 Palestinians since 7 October and wounded double that amount in its levelling of Gaza, mostly women and children. It is using starvation as a weapon of war and has killed dozens of Israeli hostages while taking thousands of Palestinian hostages and, according to the UN, carrying out summary executions of civilians and raping and abusing Palestinian women and girls.
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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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Israeli army gassed my son ‘like Auschwitz,’ mother of slain Israeli soldier says
An outraged Israeli mom has sparked an uproar after accusing the Israeli army of deliberately gassing her son to death while he was being held in a Gaza tunnel. Now she says the Israeli military had her son’s gravestone removed after her critical message went viral. His killing follows a pattern of Israeli military attacks on Israeli captives in Gaza, raising questions about the existence of a friendly fire policy to prevent prisoner swaps. The mother of a now-dead Israeli […]
The post Israeli army gassed my son ‘like Auschwitz,’ mother of slain Israeli soldier says first appeared on The Grayzone.
The post Israeli army gassed my son ‘like Auschwitz,’ mother of slain Israeli soldier says appeared first on The Grayzone.
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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IDF admits killing 3 escaped Israeli hostages in Gaza
Yet more Israelis killed by so-called ‘friendly fire’ after mass deaths 7 October as hostages shot dead
Yotam Haim, one of three Israeli hostages murdered ‘in error’ by Israeli forces
The Israeli army has admitted shooting dead three Israeli hostages who had escaped captivity in Gaza, claiming soldiers ‘mistook’ them for a Hamas threat, prompting a furious reaction among Israeli families against the Netanyahu regime.
IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari claimed the IDF feels ‘deep regret’ over the deaths of Yotam Haim, Samer Talalka and an as-yet unnamed Israeli.
The deaths have been reported by some UK media – unlike the hundreds of Israeli victims now known to have been killed by so-called ‘friendly fire’ from tanks, helicopters, drones and troops during the 7 October Hamas raid, as IDF forces killed indiscriminately under the ‘Hannibal doctrine‘ to prevent hostage-taking.
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Woman in Palestinian flag sets fire to herself outside Israel’s Atlanta consulate
UK ‘mainstream’ media ignores desperate protest hours after event, while Israel’s genocide of Palestinians resumes
A woman draped in a Palestinian flag has set fire to herself outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta in a desperate protest against Israel’s renewed slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Hours after the event, the UK media appears to be continuing to ignore the protest:
The Daily Express’s US edition mentioned the story – but framed the incident as a threat to Israelis, majoring on reassuring readers that consulate staff are safe.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed and injured in a few hours as Israel resumed its mass bombing after the temporary pause for hostage exchange ended. Israeli soldiers reportedly also shot dead at least one young boy for celebrating the release of Palestinian hostages, who were being held by Israel without trial, as part of the exchange.
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Video: IDF caught faking ‘attempted Hamas ambush’
‘Prisoner’ seen dragged away in underwear caught putting pants back on after camera supposed to have stopped filming
The IDF’s attempts at propaganda have been as howlingly inept as its bombing of Gazan civilians has been deadly, from being caught planting evidence in Al Shifa hospital, to claiming a chart showed the names of ‘terrorists’ when in fact it showing the days of the week, to claiming a man covered in blood in a hospital CCTV video was an unhurt hostage being hidden in the hospital.
Meanwhile – although ignored by complicit western media – Israel has admitted that its own helicopters and artillery killed large numbers of Israeli citizens whose deaths it blamed on Hamas.
And now the IDF appears to have been caught faking a ‘Hamas ambush’ in which it dragged off a ‘terrorist’ in his underwear – only for the camera to catch the man putting his clothes back on, with no soldiers holding him captive, behind a screen.
The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal first outed the incident and was blocked by the right-wing US reporter who had claimed it was an attempted ambush:
After blocking me for exposing his (possibly unwitting) participation in Israel’s planting evidence at Shifa hospital, Fox’s @TreyYingst stands accused of a hoax standoff. He’s fervently denied it on his IG account. I think more investigation is in order. pic.twitter.com/TMLB17ZNAV
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) November 24, 2023
Yngst then claimed that a still featured in Blumenthal’s video showed the man getting undressed under IDF guard:
But in the actual footage it is clear that the still was taken after the man was shown being escorted away blindfolded (with media and military cameras conveniently ready to film that part) – and the footage showing him putting his trousers back on appears at the end of the clip apparently because a cloth screen blew upward in the wind, followed by agitated soldiers telling the camera to stop filming:
Israel’s merciless mass killing of children and civilian women and the elderly, combined with its propaganda incompetence and the arrogance of its spokespeople, have led millions to march for peace and justice for Palestinians and to deride the endless propaganda failures that would certainly be fatal to its narrative if the western media reported half of what is revealed by the Israeli press and broadcasters.
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Video: Israeli reserve colonel says Oct 7 killings were ‘mass Hannibal’ directive by IDF, not Hamas
Israeli media interview supports eyewitness accounts and inadvertent admission by Netanyahu spokesman that Israeli military, not Hamas, responsible for most deaths at Kibbutz Be’eri
A candid interview with a senior Israeli Defence Force (IDF) reserve pilot corroborates reports from eyewitnesses that Israeli forces were responsible for most deaths in the 7 October kibbutz raid – and not Palestinian resistance group Hamas.
The ‘Hannibal directive’, an instruction to the military to kill both hostages and raiders to prevent hostages being taken into captivity, was officially repealed in 2008, but Colonel Nof Erez said that he and his fellow pilots have been practising it for the past twenty years – and that the carnage at Kibbutz Be’eri was a ‘mass Hannibal’, with helicopter gunships shooting indiscriminately at cars leaving the area, without knowing whether they contained hostages or not.
Erez, speaking to Israeli media outlet Haaretz and translated by Asian news magazine The Cradle, said that the absence of any Israeli forces on the ground at the time ruled out any chance of ground coordination of the air assault – meaning that the helicopters would have been shooting at any target that moved:
Speaking with Haaretz, Israeli reserve pilot Col. Nof Erez describes Israeli army's response to Oct. 7 as "MASS HANNIBAL."
The Hannibal Directive orders the army to kill their own to prevent them being taken captive. pic.twitter.com/5IrERAAtVl— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) November 20, 2023
Survivors of the slaughter have said that they were treated well by the Hamas raiders, but that Israeli forces fired indiscriminately – with one eyewitness reporting that her husband had been killed by Israeli bullets – and the kibbutz security head said that houses had been shelled to bring them down on their occupants and kill them and the Hamas fighters.
And last week former Israeli ambassador Mark Regev, now a key Netanyahu adviser, inadvertently admitted that the many charred bodies had been burned by Israeli weapons – as long suspected by military experts and commentators who knew that Hamas does not have weapons that will do it – when he said that two hundred bodies had been thought to be Israeli but were in fact Palestinians.
Western media and politicians remain stubbornly silent on these facts, allowing the Israeli regime to continue to deceive the UK and US public with lurid and entirely unevidenced tales – what has been put forward as supposed evidence has rapidly fallen apart – of rapes and beheadings to justify Israel’s war crimes and mass murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
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