IDF
Video: Miriam Margolyes’s powerful statement on ‘vicious, genocidal’ Israel
Jewish actress posts no-holds-barred video supporting Jewish Council of Australia, attacked by Zionists for ceasefire call
Jewish actress and national treasure Miriam Margolyes, a joint UK and Australian citizen, has posted a video supporting the Jewish Council of Australia (JCA) call for an immediate and permanent halt to Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza – along with the imposition of sanctions and an immediate end to Australia’s military ties with Israel.
The JCA has been heavily attacked by pro-Israel groups for the call, with the attacks following similar lines to the dismissal in the UK of left-wing Jewish groups by right-wing nationalist organisations and politicians.
In her video, Margolyes says she has never been more ashamed of Israel – which she described as a ‘vicious, genocidal, nationalist nation’:
Despite the antisemitic representation by western governments and media as if all Jews support Israel, very many do not – and even many who have supported it are disgusted by Israel’s mass murder of, so far, more than forty thousand Palestinian civilians, overwhelmingly women and children, and the blockade and assaults it is using to starve two million more. The UK and Australian establishments continue their complicity in Israel’s war crimes.
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Israeli forces execute 13 CHILDREN near Al Shifa hospital
Human rights organisation reports further IDF war crimes
Image: Euro Med Monitor
Human rights group Euro Med Monitor )EMM) has reported another “blatant violation of international law” by Israeli occupation forces during the IDF’s assault on Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital. Israeli soldiers have executed at least 13 children near the hospital, a shameless war crime and a crime against humanity.
EMM reports that for almost two weeks Israeli forces have carried out prolonged and deadly operations at the hospital, including extrajudicial executions and deliberate killings of Palestinian civilians that have been widely attested. The murdered children were between the ages of four and 16, some inside their family home and others as they tried to flee via supposedly ‘safe’ routes after being ordered to evacuate or face being bombed. Israeli troops also fired on those trying to help the children.
The news of the infanticides comes as video emerged of IDF forces shooting men holding white flags as they tried to leave the area, then bulldozing the bodies – an apparent show of contempt for the International Court of Justice’s order to allow immediate humanitarian aid into Gaza, which Israel has ignored.
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Exclusive: Graham claims financials ‘fake’ – but they were ‘on Unite Sharepoint’
‘Unhinged’ claim challenged by screenshots – no response from Unite to request to confirm whether union management stands by bizarre comment from general secretary in letter to all staff, officers and organisers
As Skwawkbox covered earlier today, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham sent a bizarre email to all the union’s organisers, staff and officers that was described as ‘unhinged’, ‘flailing’ and ‘a rant’ by union insiders – and called ‘disgusting’ for its prioritisation of weapons-making jobs over opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Britain’s complicity in it.
As well as its section on Palestine, Graham’s letter also attempted to defuse criticism of the union’s financial management – by claiming that the ‘preliminary’ financial report circulating among astonished officers, members and activists is a forgery in which ‘those with much to lose’ even copied the font and layout of a real Unite finance report:
Fake Finance Document
Those with much to lose from the new way forward, including curtailing money given to outside organisations and the new industrial focus, have escalated actions by producing a fake Unite Finance Document for release on Social Media. Most recently appearing on social media. The document was headed “Unite Finance Report” and mirrored (down to the same font and layout) Unite’s usual finance report style. This had the sole aim of discrediting the leadership but most importantly it undermined the Union. It stated that the Union’s financial position was in difficulty since the General Secretary election. This is untrue and is now being dealt with legally.
Ms Graham did not name ‘those with much to lose’ – but those challenging her claim have pointed out that the screenshots of the ‘fake finance document’ appear to show that it was screengrabbed directly from Unite’s ‘Sharepoint’ system:
Sharepoint, a Microsoft platform, is a “web-based collaborative platform that integrates natively with Microsoft 365 … primarily sold as a document management and storage system, although it is also used for sharing information through an intranet, implementing internal applications, and for implementing business processes.” The Unite address shown on the screengrabs appears to indicate that the document was at least stored, and potentially created, on the union’s own dedicated server. It is unclear against whom the issue “is now being dealt with legally”, since no supposed culprits are identified.
The claim was perceived as so outlandish that union activists have been contacting Skwawkbox all day about it. One said:
This is unhinged, she just looks like she’s flailing all over the place.
Another commented:
This is a rant and she’s sent it to everyone, what is she thinking?
Skwawkbox wrote to Unite’s press office:
Ms Graham’s letter referred to in my previous email today also claims Unite financials were a forgery and even that someone has copied the layout and font of genuine reports to fool people. The claim has been described by Unite recipients as ‘unhinged’. Screenshots of the report show that it came from the Unite Sharepoint – is the union really claiming this was faked and stored on the official network??
No response, apart from a confirmation of receipt, was received by the reply deadline of 5pm or since. It would be extraordinarily thorough for someone to go to the lengths of adding Sharepoint details to a fake, but Unite was given the opportunity to say that it believes this was done and has not done so.
Graham also told recipients that Unite’s finances were “pushing up towards half a billion pounds”. Skwawkbox understands that they were around half a billion pounds when she took over as general secretary.
As Skwawkbox showed earlier, Graham’s letter had disgusted many who read it because it said that the union will always prioritise weapons-making jobs over the need to fight Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and appeared to imply that those working in that sector didn’t care about them being used in the slaughter of Palestinian women and children.
Sharon Graham has been alleged by insiders to have:
- banned Unite officials and national banners from pro-Gaza protests
- banned and smeared films and books exposing the ‘Labour antisemitism’ scam
- placed an official under investigation who refused to cancel a Palestine solidarity fringe event at Labour’s 2023 annual conference
- told her chief of staff to threaten a soon-to-retire official with the loss of a pension bonus if he did not soften his support for Palestinians
Her supporters also prevented debate and votes on Gaza at a meeting of the union’s elected executive earlier this month.
Apart from the issue of Gaza, her tenure as Unite boss has also been marked by a string of other allegations – which neither she nor the union has denied – including destruction of evidence against her husband in threat, misogyny and bullying complaints brought by union employees. She is also embroiled in both an employment tribunal for discrimination and a defamation lawsuit brought by Irish union legend Brendan Ogle for the union’s treatment of him and comments made about him by Graham and her close ally Tony Woodhouse.
According to human rights group Euro Med Monitor, since 7 October last year Israel has killed over 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded more than double that number, overwhelmingly women and children and many of them with life-changing injuries, while Gaza’s health and school systems have been bombed into collapse, often using US- and UK-made weapons and systems. More than a million people have been forcibly displaced and Gaza is in famine because of Israel’s blockade of food and vital supplies. Israel is formally on trial for genocide before the International Court of Justice and ordered to stop its slaughter – and has been found by UN human rights investigators to be committing genocide.
The finance and Gaza comments are not the end of the issues with Graham’s email. Skwawkbox will cover further aspects shortly.
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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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Find Someone Who Loves You Like Israel Loves Attacking Palestinian Hospitals
Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
https://medium.com/media/5da14eeb69f36f43dc607326b0bb61d9/href
The World Health Organization has issued a statement saying that it has recorded 410 Israeli attacks on Gazan healthcare services since October 7, resulting in 685 fatalities, 902 injuries, and damage to 99 healthcare facilities.
As of this writing there is a still-ongoing IDF assault on Al-Shifa Hospital, which according to Israel has resulted in scores of Palestinian deaths and the capture of hundreds of prisoners. This is the fourth time Israel has attacked this particular hospital, which happens to be the largest hospital in Gaza.
Survivors of the assault have told Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor that they repeatedly witnessed groups of prisoners being walked into the hospital morgue by IDF troops, then heard the sound of gunfire, then saw the IDF troops returning without the prisoners. Which is probably exactly what it would look and sound like if the IDF was conducting mass summary executions at Al-Shifa Hospital.
Sulaiman Ahmed on Twitter: "BREAKING: ISRAEL TAKE MORE CIVILIANS HOSTAGE FROM AL-SHIFAThey took 160 palestinians hostage including;✅ Intensive Unit Team✅ Dr. Nihad Abed✅ Dr. Mu'nis Muhaisen✅ Senior Nurse Rohi Labban✅ Nurse Kamal Kishko✅ Orthopaedic Team✅ Dr. Murad Al-Quqa✅ Nurse Yosef Abo... pic.twitter.com/hvN2hrUc8m / Twitter"
BREAKING: ISRAEL TAKE MORE CIVILIANS HOSTAGE FROM AL-SHIFAThey took 160 palestinians hostage including;✅ Intensive Unit Team✅ Dr. Nihad Abed✅ Dr. Mu'nis Muhaisen✅ Senior Nurse Rohi Labban✅ Nurse Kamal Kishko✅ Orthopaedic Team✅ Dr. Murad Al-Quqa✅ Nurse Yosef Abo... pic.twitter.com/hvN2hrUc8m
In an article for The Washington Post titled “How Biden became embroiled in a Gaza conflict with no end in sight” (the western press have an extensive track record of constantly framing US military aggressions as passive entanglements that the global superpower keeps innocently stumbling and bumbling its way into by accident), Yasmeen Abutaleb and John Hudson report that according to their sources the Biden White House misrepresented the intelligence whose claims were used to justify the first Al-Shifa raid back in November.
Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat, told The Washington Post that there was a marked discrepancy between what White House officials were saying publicly about Al-Shifa and what the intelligence they’d seen actually said:
“Van Hollen, who had received a classified briefing about the U.S. intelligence on al-Shifa, said there were ‘important and subtle differences’ between what Biden officials were saying publicly and what the intelligence actually showed. ‘I did find there to be some disconnect between the administration’s public statements and the classified findings,’ the senator said.”
In December, when it was all long over, The Washington Post published a report which found that “the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center.” It was obvious that Israel was lying about Al-Shifa at the time back in November, with psyops like a nonexistent Hamas calendar being “discovered” in the hospital and a fake video purporting to show an Al-Shifa nurse saying the hospital was overrun with Hamas fighters being debunked as fast as they could be produced.
Caitlin Johnstone on Twitter: "Are people not tired of having their intelligence insulted? https://t.co/SVPeXjR4OQ / Twitter"
Are people not tired of having their intelligence insulted? https://t.co/SVPeXjR4OQ
The evidence for the justification of this raid doesn’t appear to be any more robust, with the IDF publishing highly dubious footage of what it claims are “Hamas terrorist funds found inside Shifa Hospital”, complete with notes accompanying the money thanking Hamas by name for their “good work”.
Yeah okay sure, people have been somehow sending “Dear Hamas” letters to the militant group with wads of cash enclosed, and Hamas has been keeping both the cash and the letters in Al-Shifa Hospital, where they were kind enough to leave it for the incoming IDF raid to discover. Sounds legit. Definitely not the sort of thing Israel has been caught lying about many times before.
In an article titled “US and UK doctors in Washington to warn of IDF’s ‘appalling atrocities’ in Gaza”, The Guardian’s Chris McGreal writes the following:
Professor Nick Maynard, the former director for cancer services at Oxford University who worked at the al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza at the beginning of the year, accused the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of “appalling atrocities”.
“The IDF are systematically targeting healthcare facilities, healthcare personnel and really dismantling the whole healthcare system,” he said.
“It’s not just about targeting the buildings, it’s about systematically destroying the infrastructure of the hospitals. Destroying the oxygen tanks at the al-Shifa hospital, deliberately destroying the CT scanners and making it much more difficult to rebuild that infrastructure. If it was just targeting Hamas militants, why are they deliberately destroying the infrastructure of these institutions?”
The UN says none of Gaza’s 36 hospitals is fully functional. A dozen are partially working and the others are destroyed. On Monday, the Israeli military again raided the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. Medical staff said the IDF killed and arrested Palestinians inside the hospital.
Khaled Elgindy on Twitter: "For those who still think Israel's assault on Gaza is about self-defense or even Hamas... US and UK doctors in Washington to warn of IDF's 'appalling atrocities' in Gaza https://t.co/ONkCJoLehD / Twitter"
For those who still think Israel's assault on Gaza is about self-defense or even Hamas... US and UK doctors in Washington to warn of IDF's 'appalling atrocities' in Gaza https://t.co/ONkCJoLehD
Israel’s constant fixation on attacking healthcare facilities makes no sense from a military strategic point of view, but it makes plenty of sense from a genocidal point of view. Hospitals are where people are brought to save their lives after they’ve been badly injured or have become acutely malnourished or sick, and they’re where civilians would normally take shelter when nowhere else is safe.
All the way back in December we were already seeing reports that Gaza’s healthcare system has been effectively destroyed by the nonstop attacks on healthcare facilities and the siege warfare cutting the enclave off from much-needed medical supplies. Now we are seeing Israel repeatedly re-attacking those same facilities, ensuring that they remain non-functioning despite all the most resilient efforts of the people of Gaza to stay alive.
This is exactly what it looks like. The narrative managers of Israel and the west will try to spin and distort the information you’re seeing right in front of your face to try and make you believe you’re seeing something other than what you’re seeing, but the truth really couldn’t be more self-evident. This is a genocide. If it wasn’t, Israel wouldn’t be methodically destroying hospitals while bombing and starving the population they’ve been oppressing for generations.
______________
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Students occupy Bristol uni building in protest at ‘profits from genocide’
Students demand divestment and an end to academic ties
Bristol University students have taken control of one of the university’s Wills Memorial Building in a protest to demand an end to its ‘complicity with arms companies’ and to call for a series of actions on its part to ‘support Palestine and Palestinians’:
The demanded actions include:
- an end to cooperation with weapons manufacturers
- protection for Palestinian students and special consideration for those taking exams who have been affected by Israel’s slaughter in Gaza
- protection for anti-Zionist beliefs among staff and students – an issue on which Bristol university has a shameful record and has been the scene of intense pressure campaigns by pro-Israel groups claiming that anti-Zionism, opposition to the settler-colonial state that has displaced Palestinians and treats them as inferior
- recognition of the existence of Palestine – an existence denied by hardcore supporters of Israel
- scholarships for Palestinian refugees
Israel has killed over forty thousand Palestinian civilians, more than two thirds of them women and children, and injured twice as many, in its genocidal assault on Gaza and has ignored orders from the International Court of Justice to cease its slaughter and allow food, fuel and medicines into Gaza immediately. Gaza is now in famine, with experts predicting that more will die in the coming months from hunger and disease than from Israel’s bombs, missiles and bullets, with children again worst affected.
Palestinian flags can be seen through the Wills building’s doors. The figures in the second image have been blurred to protect identities.
The group is also demanding an end to the use of a ‘check-in’ system that tracks the location of students.
Wednesday’s action is not the first by Bristol students demanding justice for Palestinians and an end to discrimination against them and their supporters. Four months ago, students protested in the university’s ‘profits from genocide’:
And earlier this month, a group occupied Bristol University’s Victoria Rooms in a pro-Gaza protest.
The British government has mounted a pressure campaign against universities, threatening to defund them if they allow ‘extremism’ or ‘antisemitism’ in the form of pro-Palestinian speech and activism. Shamefully, a number of universities have capitulated to pressure from the UK state and from pro-Israel groups claiming that speech against Israel’s crimes and occupation of Palestinian land infringe on their rights and constitutes ‘hate’ toward Jews, even though many UK Jews oppose Israel’s actions and oppression of Palestinians.
Last month, former Bristol professor David Miller won a landmark employment tribunal case against the university, which had sacked him after pressure from pro-Israel groups, despite lawyers it appointed to run two investigations finding that he had said nothing antisemitic. The win set a precedent that anti-Zionist political beliefs are a protected characteristic under equalities law and cannot be used as grounds for dismissal. Skwawkbox understands that Prof Miller is not involved in the students’ protest.
Solidarity with students in Bristol and elsewhere who are demanding an end to complicity in war crimes.
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The Dark Reality Behind Israel’s Military PR Campaign: Genocide in Disguise
As the world is trying to come to terms with the catastrophic results of the creation of Israel, the actual executioners, those charged with committing the crimes, are hard at work to show themselves as heroic, caring, friendly and humane. The Israeli military public relations campaign on the different social media platforms is sickening. Young men just back from committing heinous crimes are asked by a young military reporter, “What is the first thing you will do when you get home?”
“Hug my mama,” one said. Another answered, “See my girlfriend,” while a third said he would get his hands on a juicy steak. How normal! In another scene, the Golani Brigade members compete to see who has the most Golani-loving family. Photos of generations of Israelis who served in the murderous brigade swell with pride as they all admit to having been part of the atrocities taking place for generations.
“Give Respect to the Nahal Brigade” is yet another campaign where one can see members of that particular terrorist unit committing crimes against humanity, attacking and destroying people and infrastructure like the genocidal maniacs that they are. At the same time, they are made to look heroic and friendly.
The campaign goes on and on, and another particularly cynical one shows young women in IDF uniform, ranging the entire racial spectrum and attractive to the Western eye, talking about their role in the genocide and terrorizing of Palestinians. They are commanders, teachers, clerks, observers in observation towers and on and on, and they pretend to take pride in their despicable work.
The Israeli military pages on the various platforms are all in violation of community guidelines because they promote hate and genocide. There needs to be a campaign to report these pages on a massive scale so that they are all taken down. A short list of names of these pages includes idfonline,idf_tsanhanim,idf, golani_1, shakedgdud424, idf_nahal, givati.official, shaytet_13, and sayeretgivati846.
Joe Biden’s comments on Gaza during the State of the Union address were nothing short of a grotesque attempt to claim the U.S. cares about the people of Gaza – who are subjected to genocide – while supplying weapons to the very perpetrators of the genocide. Israel is committing genocide throughout Palestine, and while the world’s attention is on Gaza, human rights abuses of Palestinians have reached unimaginable proportions. Mass murder, arrest, torture, sexual abuse in prisons, and other forms of abuse have become more commonplace than ever. Joe Biden, however, is focused on building a pier.
Never mind the fact that the pier will serve Israel and not the Palestinian people, the notion of a pier as the answer to the intentional starvation of millions of people who can access food and medicine within a five-minute drive but are denied access because of Israel, is nothing short of sadistic.
All of this is to emphasize that there is something every person can do. Social media platforms are there for us to consume, and sadistic Israeli perpetrators of genocide are right there trying to portray themselves as friendly fighters of evil. It is time to report these pages and their posts on a daily basis.
Miko Peled is a MintPress News contributing writer, published author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. His latest books are”The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”
The post The Dark Reality Behind Israel’s Military PR Campaign: Genocide in Disguise appeared first on MintPress News.
Heartbreaking video as little Palestinian boy talks seeing of dad, pregnant mum executed
Shocking matter-of-fact retelling by Faisal Al-Khaldi spotlights the horror of everyday life under Israeli genocide
A video from Alaraby TV provides a devastating window on the horrific reality of life for Palestinians and their children under the genocide of their Israeli occupiers – but has also showcased the love, humanity and courage of the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
Ahmed al-Khaldi and his pregnant wife Fatima were executed in December when Israeli soldiers invaded their home, an incident confirmed by human rights group Euro-Med Monitor. Their son Adam was also killed and his four-year-old little brother Faisal was wounded but survived. Six others in the house were also murdered.
Little Faisal has now spoken to Alaraby about seeing his parents murdered:
As Alon Mizrahi, who shared the video to Twitter, pointed out, the video of Faisal shows a ‘premature maturity’ that can only be born out of great horror – but the love of the anonymous woman who is caring for him is just as powerful. Mizrahi, in a post accompanying the video, commented:
1. The maturity of this kid, which is way beyond his tender age. He recounts things he saw almost like an adult giving testimony. This kind of premature maturity is only the result of tragedy and disaster: a world in which children are not allowed to be children. This has been true for Gaza for generations, thanks to Israel’s occupation, siege and frequent wars.
2. The other thing that stood out for me was the amounts of love showered on this kid by the woman that we never see, but only hear her voice, see her hand and feel her presence. This really melts your heart immediately in it’s universal humanity, but it is also distinctly Arab. This kind of outpouring, heartfelt love, with this tone of voice, this pyisicallity [sic], that heart fully open – that is immediately recognizable to me as Arab.
This genocide has been started, and is being inflicted, with always the big political and cultural purpose of dehumanizing Arabs and Muslims: this has been its underlaying foundation. But what is happening is exactly the opposite.
Hundreds of millions of people have been exposed, for the first time in life, to the immense beauty, generosity, humanity, courage and wisdom the Muslim and Arab world are capable of.
This was made with the intention of making Muslims and Arabs hated, and presenting them as sub-human; but I think, for much of humanity, this has opened gated and portals of love that had been shut before. What is coming out from Gaza’s doctors and journalists and volunteers and rescue teams and children and just people – this has captivated the hearts of countless good souls around this planet.
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Video: ‘unfounded, unverified’ – what UN really said about Israel’s ‘Hamas rape’ claims
Pro-Israel spin and complicit mainstream media claim UN report upheld Israel’s claims – it didn’t and even the UN’s political collusion collapses under scrutiny
Israel’s supporters, compliant ‘mainstream’ media and a host of professional and unpaid amplifier accounts have spent the past few days trumpeting the supposed ‘confirmation’ by the United Nations of Israel’s claims of rapes, mutilations and sexual violence by Hamas during the 7 October raid.
In reality, while they claimed ‘evidence’ was ‘clear and convincing’ of sexual violence ‘committed against captives’, this evidence appears to be purely the claims of captives, since there was no mention of – and no realistic possibility of collecting – forensic evidence from the period and locations of captivity.
Such claims are, of course, at odds with the testimony of female captives that they were treated well and even ‘like queens’. And Pramila Patten added her finding that even if such violence was occurring, it in fact delegitimises Israel’s use of violence, which is preventing the return of captives.
Patten then claimed there were ‘reasonable grounds’ to think that sexual violence took place at the Nova rave and on the road back toward Gaza – already demonstrably farcical when Israeli helicopter gunships are well known to have been firing constantly and repeatedly at anything that moved. And Patten even linked her claim of reasonableness to the mass killing and burning of bodies – killings and burnings which have been firmly linked to the mass chain-gun and missile ‘friendly fire’ of Israeli helicopters known to have fired indiscriminately at Israeli and Palestinian alike under the ‘Hannibal directive‘.
So extensive was this ‘friendly fire’ that hundreds of Palestinian bodies were originally misidentified by Israel as Israelis, proving that the fire came from Israeli sources. In fact, the Israeli military knew – and has admitted to Israeli media – that it killed an ‘immense’ number of its own people on the day of the raid. Patten either ignored, or was ignorant of, this admission.
With regard to the day of the raid, the UN panel said that of all Israel’s claims, three were positively disproven – and all the rest were unverified, with many based on the ‘inaccurate’ and ‘unreliable’ claims of a group of people who didn’t know what they were talking about. This was not hinted at by the UN panel, but stated flatly and unequivocally – with the two UN women concluding that they had been unable to verify any sexual violence:
And Pramila Patten went on to admit that:
- there was no forensic evidence of rape – or ‘very very little’, with no specification of any evidence that was found
- there was no evidence of ‘systematic’ sexual violence, despite a team of scientists taking part in the UN visit
- she had not tied any sexual violence anywhere to Hamas or any group
Despite this, Israel’s mouthpieces and propagandists have stridently insisted the opposite of the women’s findings, including the political padding and leaving out the inconvenient – but very clearly expressed – reality of what Patten and her colleague said they found, or more accurately did not find.
As with every other claim by Israel so far since its genocide in Gaza began, the claim to have been vindicated by the UN findings falls apart under scrutiny. In contrast, rape, torture and sexual violence toward Palestinian women by Israeli troops and security personnel is credible and widespread.
But even if Israel’s claims didn’t collapse under scrutiny, they would be no excuse for the genocide Israel is committing in Gaza – and Patten and her colleague were absolutely clear about that.
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‘Mass resignations’ among IDF spokespeople – including Hagari’s number 2 – Israeli media
Israeli Channel 14 reports discontent and departures in Israeli military’s widely-derided propaganda unit
Israel’s Channel 14 broadcaster has reported a slew of resignations among senior members of Israel’s military ‘Spokespersons unit’ amid growing chaos in the unit. The investigations are said to include the unit’s number two Col Butbul, as well as Colonel Moran Katz, Lieutenant Richard Hecht, the unit’s International Spokesperson.
Israel’s spokespeople have been widely derided for ludicrous claims, including calling a calendar a list of terrorist personnel, and have repeatedly pushed transparent attempts to deflect blame for Israel’s atrocities, including the bombing of multiple hospitals.
Many of the propagandists have become ‘memes’ in their own right – and the latest news has generated at least one classic, showing unit boss Daniel Hagari, who infamously made the calendar claim, pointing at himself in a headline about the resignations:
A screenshot of ‘The Agitator’s video meme
Hagari was reportedly appointed to run the unit without any former role in it.
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