Tag: palestine

Western media concocts ‘evidence’ UN report on Oct 7 sex crimes failed to deliver

Western media promoted a UN report as proof Hamas sexually assaulted Israelis. Yet the report’s authors admitted they couldn’t locate a single victim, suggested Israeli officials staged a rape scene, and denounced “inaccurate forensic interpretations.”

On March 4, the United Nations released a report into sexual violence which has supposedly taken place amid the Israeli war on Gaza. The report was immediately celebrated in mainstream media outlets as proof of what scores of Israel lobbyists and journalists under their sway have insisted for months (despite a wealth of evidence to the contrary): that Hamas forces engaged in a systematic campaign of rape during their attack on Israel on October 7.

There was just one problem. The report’s authors flatly contradicted the idea that any evidence existed to prove a campaign of rape by Hamas.

Many legacy media outlets papered over this inconvenient fact with a few clever tweaks of language. The Associated Press, for example, repackaged claims of rape at Kibbutz Be’eri — which the UN report dismissed as “unfounded” — as “allegations of rape that could not yet be verified.” 

The AP wasn’t the only outlet to indulge in such creative writing. A March 5 New York Times headline insisted the UN report had uncovered the sought-after “Evidence of Sexual Assault in Hamas-Led Attack on Israel.”

But following a social media post by The Grayzone’s editor-in-chief, Max Blumenthal, the Times quietly amended its headline to read: “UN Team Finds Grounds to Support Reports of Sexual Violence in Hamas Attack.”

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UN Report Finds Palestinians Sexually Abused and Beaten in Israeli Detention

A document compiled by the UN Palestinian agency (UNRWA) found rampant abuse of Palestinians in Israeli detention facilities. The detainees report frequent beatings, sexual abuse, and even the deaths of prisoners. Thousands of Palestinians have been rounded by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza over the past four months. 

The New York Times viewed a UNRWA report that documents pervasive abuse in Israeli detention camps. “Detainees said they were beaten, stripped, robbed, blindfolded, sexually abused, and denied access to lawyers and doctors, often for more than a month,” the outlet wrote. “Some detainees, according to the report, told UNRWA investigators that they had often been beaten on open wounds, had been held for hours in painful stress positions, and had been attacked by military dogs.”

One prisoner reported he was “beaten so badly that his genitals turned blue and that there was still blood present in his urine,” adding that “guards made him sleep naked in the open air, next to a fan blowing cold air, and played music so loudly that his ear bled.” 

The draft document describes “a range of ill-treatment that Gazans of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds have reported facing in makeshift detention facilities in Israel.” Such treatment, the report concluded, “was used to extract information or confessions, to intimidate and humiliate, and to punish.”

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So They’re Experimenting With Military Robots In Gaza Now

One of the most horrifying facts about this dystopia we live in is that large-scale military operations are routinely used as testing grounds for new war machinery, using human bodies as guinea pigs for experimentation in what amount to giant blood-soaked field laboratories — all to benefit the strategic objectives of empire managers and the profit margins of the military-industrial complex.

Haaretz has a new article out titled “Gaza Becomes Israel’s Testing Ground for Military Robots”, which reports that “In an effort to avoid harming soldiers and dogs, the IDF has been experimenting with the use of robots and remote-controlled dogs in the Gaza War.”

(Yeah because my gosh, can you imagine how terrible it would be if Israeli soldiers and dogs got harmed while carrying out a genocide?)

The article’s author Sagi Cohen reports that drone-mounted robot dogs and remotely controlled bulldozers are two of the new apocalyptic horrors currently being battle-tested in Gaza, saying “defense establishment officials confirm that there has been a leap in the use and sophistication of robots on the battlefield.” Which is a pretty disconcerting sentence to read.

This news comes out at the same time as a new Public Citizen report warning of the likely imminent arrival of autonomous weapons systems which will kill people with minimal instruction from human pilots, saying “The most serious worry involving autonomous weapons is that they inherently dehumanize the people targeted and make it easier to tolerate widespread killing, including in violation of international human rights law.” 

The more normalized robots become within the world’s militaries the closer we come to this point, and steps are already being taken in that direction. As Common Dreams’ Thor Benson notes in an article about the Public Citizen report, “Israel has purchased and at times deployed self-piloting, lethal drones.”

Back in January I wrote that “Gaza is a live laboratory for the military industrial complex,” saying “Data is with absolute certainty being collected on all the newer weapons being field-tested on human bodies in Gaza (just like has been happening in Ukraine) to be used to benefit the war machine and arms industry.”

What sparked this comment at the time was reports and first-hand witness accounts we’d seen coming out about the prolific use of IDF “sniper drones” in Gaza since October, with Israeli forces frequently shooting Palestinians with quad drones armed with rifles. Copious records are most assuredly being compiled on the effectiveness of these newer weapons and tactics in ending human lives, which will then be used to help market those weapons to other states and to improve their efficiency in killing.

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On Hypocrisy and Genocide – How Gaza Has Exposed the West Like Never Before

The Israeli genocide in Gaza will be remembered as the moral collapse of the West.

As soon as the Israeli war began, following the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7, every moral or legal frame of reference that Washington and its western allies supposedly held dear was suddenly dropped. Western leaders rushed to Israel, one after the other, offering military, political and intelligence support – along with a blank check to rightwing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his generals to torment the Palestinians.

The likes of the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, went as far as joining Israel’s first war council meeting, so that he could take part in the discussion which directly resulted in the Gaza genocide.

“I come before you not only as the United States Secretary of State, but also as a Jew,” he said on October 12. The interpretation of these words is disturbing, no matter how it is spun, but it also ultimately means that Blinken has lost all credibility as an American, as a politician or even as a fair-minded human being.

His boss, President Joe Biden, as if in an infinite loop, has been, for years, repeating that “You don’t have to be Jewish to be a Zionist”. Indeed, he has lived up to his maxim, declaring, time and again, “I am a Zionist”. Indeed, he is.

Like many other US and western officials and politicians, the US President abandoned international and humanitarian laws altogether, even the law of his own country. The Leahy Law “prohibits the US Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity.” Instead, he, like Blinken, subscribed to tribal affiliation and ideological notions, which simply added fuel to the fire.

Though “protected persons” under international law, Palestinians seem dispensable, in fact, irrelevant to the point that their collective death appears critical for Israel to regain its ‘deterrence’, and to protect itself, in the words of Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, against the “human animals” of Gaza.

If there is a stronger word than hypocrisy, one would have used it. But, for now, it would have to suffice.

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U.S. Blocks UN Resolution That Blames Israel for Gaza Massacre at Food Convoy

The Biden administration, once again, proved that there is no crime too severe that Israel can commit against Palestinians that would result in public condemnation or a policy change.

Just a day after over 100 Palestinians were killed at a Gaza food convoy — including many with gunshot wounds — the U.S. blocked consideration of a UN Security Council resolution blaming Israel for the deaths, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The report read:

The Associated Press reported that 14 of the 15 members of the Security Council favored approving the resolution, drafted by Algeria, but that the United States, one of five permanent members of the council with veto power, blocked it, seeking more information about the incident. The text of the draft resolution was not available.

The White House’s position is that is waiting for the result of investigations because Israel claimed that many of those killed died in a stampede near the convoy.

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Biden say’s its all Legal Under the UN Rules of Murder

First they bring food by truck and tell people to come get the food, then they open-fire, killing +100, and injuring +1,000

Then they call out the people to come back for food and they do it again, and shoot the survivors who are desperate for food;

https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/495541/Over-110-Gazans-killed-760-injured-while-waiting-for-food-aid

Oman’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a statement said the deadly attack on aid seekers was a part of “systematic criminal acts by the occupation forces”.

The incident was a clear violation of international law the ministry said, adding that it was “nothing but a continuation of the policy of extermination pursued by the Israeli occupation forces”.

( Yep, its clear that USA has veto power over UN, and USA makes all its rules; This is called the Golden-Rule )

“The Sultanate of Oman calls on the international community to intervene urgently and decisively to put an end to the tragic humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip and to hold the occupying state fully responsible for its targeting of civilians and civilian facilities in the Gaza Strip,” the ministry said, Al Jazeera reported.

Also, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Israeli forces have committed “yet another crime” after firing on Palestinians queueing for food in northern Gaza, where Israel has blocked or delayed large portions of humanitarian assistance for months.

“Israel has committed yet another crime against humanity with the killing of the Palestinians in the Nabulsi Square. The fact that Israel, which has been using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, is now targeting innocent civilians who are seeking life-saving aid is evidence of Israel’s intention to destroy the entire Palestinian population,” a statement from the ministry reads.

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Aid Truck Stampede ‘Massacre’ In Gaza: Israel Accused Of Opening Fire On Crowd

There are reports of a mass casualty event in Gaza City on Thursday, with Hamas claiming at least 104 Palestinians killed and several hundred wounded or injured (though casualty numbers have fluctuated in the immediate aftermath). However, Israel is disputing local accounts of what happened and says people died following a stamped caused by Palestinians rushing aid trucks.

There are several different versions of what happened, but all accounts agree that mayhem was unleashed when some 30 humanitarian aid trucks containing food were positioned on the street under Israeli protection. Gaza has been on the brink of famine, and so reportedly hundreds of people rushed toward to trucks hoping to obtain something.

And that’s when according to The Guardian, “An Israeli source said Israeli troops opened fire on Thursday at ‘several people’ among a crowd that surrounded aid trucks in the Gaza Strip after feeling under threat.”

Quickly in the aftermath, and as gruesome videos emerged from the scene, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement condemning what he described as “the ugly massacre conducted by the Israeli occupation army this morning.”

Palestinians say that Israeli troops shot indiscriminately into the crowd and used the aid trucks in a kind of “ambush” – while Israel’s military says people were killed in a “stampede for aid” and “crowd crush”, and that some of the deaths were the result of Israeli soldiers being under immediate threat. 

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US airman Aaron Bushnell claimed to have classified knowledge of US forces fighting in Gaza tunnels on night before setting himself on fire: pal

Aaron Bushnell claimed he had secret knowledge of US troops fighting in Hamas tunnels under Gaza — just hours before setting himself on fire in an “extreme act of protest” against Israel, a close pal told The Post on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old airman — who served in the Air Force’s 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing, but also interacted with radical anarchist groups online — ranted that he had “top-secret clearance’’ for military intelligence data in the call to his friend Saturday night, he said.

“He told me on Saturday that we have troops in those tunnels, that it’s US soldiers participating in the killings,’’ claimed the pal, whose ties to Bushnell have been verified by The Post.

“His actual job involves the processing of intelligence data. Some of what he was processing had to do with the Israeli Gaza conflict.”

“One of the things he told me is that coming across his desk … was the US military was involved in the genocides going on in Palestine,’’ the friend said, referring to Israel’s war against the Palestinian terror group Hamas in Gaza.

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Settler violence: Israel’s ethnic cleansing plan for the West Bank

On February 8, Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian shepherds who were out grazing their herds in the Sadet a-Tha’leh community, near Hebron in the occupied West Bank. They expelled the Palestinians from the pasture and used drones to scare their livestock. As a result, the shepherds suffered severe losses as many of their terrified animals had miscarriages and stillbirths in the middle of lambing season.

The incident is not unique and it is part of what human rights defenders are describing as “economic warfare by settlers which leads to displacement”.

What happened at Sadet a-Tha’leh is one of 561 incidents of Israeli settler attacks against the Palestinians, which the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has recorded between October 7 and February 20. As of January 17, settlers have killed at least eight Palestinians and injured 111, per OCHA’s database. Repeated waves of violence by settlers, often backed by the army, have led to the displacement of 1,208 Palestinians, including 586 children, across 198 households.

While humanitarian and human rights organisations tend to register these violent acts as separate incidents, they constitute systematic brutality unleashed by extremist settlers onto the Palestinian population of the occupied West Bank in parallel to the plausibly genocidal acts carried out by the Israeli army in Gaza.

Supported by the Israeli security forces and aided and abetted by the government, settler violence is a central part of the Israeli state’s policy and plan to ethnically cleanse the occupied Palestinian territory in order to establish full sovereignty over it and enable settlement expansion – despite settlements being illegal under international law.

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Shielding US Public From Israeli Reports of Friendly Fire on October 7

Since October, the Israeli press has uncovered damning evidence showing that an untold number of the Israeli victims during the October 7 Hamas attack were in fact killed by the IDF response.

While it is indisputable that the Hamas-led attackers were responsible for many Israeli civilian deaths that day, reports from Israel indicate that the IDF in multiple cases fired on and killed Israeli civilians. It’s an important issue that demands greater transparency—both in terms of the questions it raises about IDF policy, and in terms of the black-and-white narrative Israel has advanced about what happened on October 7, used to justify its ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.

Indeed, IDF responsibility for Israeli deaths has been a repeated topic of discussion in the Israeli press, accompanied by demands for investigations. But the most US readers have gotten from their own press about the issue is a dismissive piece from the Washington Post about October 7 “truthers.”

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