Israel-Palestine war: Freed Palestinian children say fellow prisoners were ‘tortured to death’

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-freed-palestinian-children-fellow-prisoners-tortured-death

When the 13 or 14 year old boy was released, the Israeli media made a big deal of him saying he was made to take off his clothing and was sexually abused.   They don’t way what the abuse was but it is hinted he was raped.   I am against the rape of anyone!  Full stop.  But that said, Israel and their supporters are deliberately ignoring the abuse, physical, sexual, and psychological / emotional, of Palestinian children by the Israeli government and military.  Please notice the age of the Palestinian boy when he was detained.   He was 16.  He had been held for 2 years with no charges, and most children detained are denied the ability to contact family or their parents.  Hugs.  Scottie


At least five Palestinian prisoners reported dead from abuse in Israeli jails, according to testimony of freed teens
 
palestine-teen-released-26-nov-2023-aljazeera-screenshot
Osama Marmash, 16, speaking to Al Jazeera after he was released from Megiddo prison on Sunday 26 November 2023 (Screengrab)
 
By Mosab Shawer in Hebron, occupied Palestine
 

Palestinian children freed from Israeli jails as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel said they were subjected to torture in captivity and that several fellow detainees were beaten to death.

The teens are among 39 Palestinians freed from Israeli detention on Sunday, in the third prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, while the latter released 13 Israelis held in Gaza.

The exchange took place for the third straight day amid a temporary four-day truce in Gaza, the first such halt of fighting since the hostilities began on 7 October. 

Khalil Mohamed Badr al-Zamaira, 18, was among those released. He was 16 when he was detained by Israeli forces. 

He said Palestinian prisoners are being mistreated and beaten in prison, and there is no different treatment for children.

“They didn’t differentiate between old and young,” he told Middle East Eye.

“Two teens were transferred from Ofer prison with broken ribs. They were unable to move.”

Likewise, Omar al-Atshan, a freed Palestinian teen, said he was mistreated and tortured in Naqab prison where he had been held prior to his release. 

“The mistreatment was indescribable,” he told Al Jazeera during a live coverage of the arrival of released prisoners in the occupied West Bank on Sunday. 

He said that they were routinely beaten and humiliated in prison, and that water and food were scarce. 

During their release, Israeli soldiers ordered them to lower their heads, and then beat them, he said.

“Our happiness is not complete because there are other captives still in detention,” he said, adding that one captive, which he identified as Thaer Abu Assab, was beaten to death in custody.

palestinian-teen-omar-released-aljazeera-screenshot-26-nov-2023.jpg
 Omar al-Atshan speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday 

“He was subjected to too much beating. We cried for help, but doctors arrived after an hour and a half after he was already dead from torture.

“He was tortured because of a question; he asked the warden whether there was a truce. Then he got beaten to death.”

Four prisoners tortured to death in Megiddo

Another freed child, Osama Marmash, also gave a similar testimony to Al Jazeera.

The 16 year old was held in Megiddo prison before his release. He told Al Jazeera that four Palestinian captives were tortured to death in Megiddo.

Marmash said he sustained wounds to his foot and back because of beating.

‘My prison clothes were white but then turned red from blood stains’

– Osama Marmash, released Palestinian teen

“My prison clothes were white but then turned red from blood stains,” he said.

The food was very little, he said, and was often “inedible”. 

He added that they were mistreated on their journey to the West Bank.

“The road was difficult. They turned off the air conditioner on the bus. We were suffocating,” he said.

The truce between Hamas and Israel is supposed to see around 150 Palestinian women and children prisoners and 50 Israelis held in Gaza be released over a period of four days.

Hamas, for its part, released 13 Israeli prisoners, including nine children, as well as four foreign nationals – three Thais and one Israeli-Russian.

US President Joe Biden said that that a four-year-old Israeli-American girl whose parents were killed on 7 October was also freed.

Hamas said in a statement that the Israeli-Russian dual national was released “in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts and in recognition of Russia’s position in support of Palestine”.

The Russian is the first male prisoner to be released by Hamas in the truce deal.

Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.

Why Israel can torture detained Palestinian children with impunity

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-torture-detained-palestinian-children-impunity

Think about it.   An occupied oppressed group of people not concidered fully human by the population of Israel.  A group not afforded rights, civil legal protections, denied food, water, the ability to go where they wish when they wish.  A group used for labor, cheap labor who can and do have their stuff taken from them by the majority.   Labor that must be done when, where, and how the oppressive majority tells them.  A group of people who can be attacked, harmed, and even killed by the oppressing majority with no right to defend themselves or justice after.    What did we call that in the US?  Yes we called it slavery, immoral, wrong.   And yes it created anger, hate, and rage against those doing the oppressing in those being oppressed.  That is what is going on and why Israel can not militarily destroy Hamas, they are just creating more enemies with every military act of destruction.   Hugs.  Scottie


Israel remains the only country in the world to automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts. Yet world leaders say nothing
 
Israeli security forces detain a Palestinian youth during a demonstration outside al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's Old City on 17 July 2017 (AFP)
Israeli security forces detain a Palestinian youth during a demonstration outside al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City on 17 July 2017 (AFP)

Israel-Palestine war: Israel shut down NGO for reporting rape of teenager, ex-US official says

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-ngo-shut-down-reporting-sexual-assault-ex-us

***Serious topic and tripper warning for sexual abuse and rape of minors***

Recently the Anti-Defamation League, the Israeli government, and main stream media especially CNN has been pushing hard the narrative that Hamas sexual abused / raped some women they captured.  When several people condemned Hamas and then also condemned Israel for doing it to Palestinian prisoners, the show’s hosts tried to quickly shut down the criticism of Israel and again tried to focus on only the events done by Hamas.  I have been posting for years the abuse and mistreatment of the Palestinian prisoners who are often held without charges for long periods of time, especially minors who are not allowed to contact parents or family.  Often the family are not told their children or other members have even been detained.   Remember for Palestinians there is no due process, no civilian courts.   They are under military rule.  I did a search for Israel prisoner abuse, and these are some of the first things that the search displayed.  Notice they are about sexual abuse and rape, and the majority of the victims are boys.  In one UN article I read, sexual torture and rape of men as old as 40 has been reported and verified as credible, and as young as 15.  We don’t know if there are younger victims who have not come forward.   Hugs.  Scottie

Since the Second Intifada, in 2000, when DCIP began tracking Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military, Israeli forces have detained, interrogated, prosecuted and imprisoned approximately 13,000 Palestinian children.

Each year, the Israeli military detains between 500 and 700 Palestinian children.


NGO Defense for Children International’s offices were raided after they reported the sexual assault of a 15-year-old by an interrogator while in Israeli custody
 
Former US State Department official Josh Paul resigned over sales of arms to Israel in October (Social media)
 

Israeli authorities banned a Palestinian NGO after it reported the rape of a Palestinian child by Israeli forces to the US State Department in 2021, former official Josh Paul said in a CNN interview on Monday.

Paul, who resigned in October in protest over arms sales to Israel, said in an interview with Christiane Amanpour that Israeli forces had raided Defense for Children International- Palestine’s offices and designated it a terrorist organisation.

That followed a complaint made by the US State Department about the rape of a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in Al-Mascobiyya detention centre in West Jerusalem.

“[They] removed their computers and declared them a terrorist entity,” Paul said.

The DCIP is the only Palestinian human rights organisation specifically focused on children’s rights.

In February 2021, the DCIP published a report documenting the physical and sexual assault against a 15-year-old Palestinian boy by an Israeli interrogator at Al-Mascobiyya interrogation and detention facility in January that year. 

The DCIP reported that the detainee had been raped with an object by his interrogator and that he was made to stand against a wall where his interrogator inflicted severe pain on his genitals.

“There are no words to describe that moment,” the detainee said in the report.

A campaign of repression

According to Ayed Abu Eqtaish, accountability programme director at DCIP, the NGO reported the assault to US officials following hundreds of unresolved complaints filed with the Israeli authorities.

“We used to submit complaints [to the Israeli authorities],” Eqtaish told MEE. “but they would not open investigations…or they would open investigations and close them under the pretext that there was no cooperation from the child or lawyer.”

According to Eqtaish, the DCIP stopped filing complaints with the Israeli authorities as they would not allow a child giving witness statements to be accompanied by a lawyer.

“So we passed the information to US officials and asked for clarification from the Israeli authorities,” Eqtaish told MEE.

“[Israel wanted to] paralyse the organisation and prevent us from revealing Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian children’

– Ayed Abu Eqtaish, DCIP

Following the complaint, DCIP offices were raided twice by Israeli forces, on 19 July 2021, and again on 18 August 2022, when their offices were raided and “sealed off” along with the offices of seven other Palestinian NGOs, in what Amnesty International condemned as a “campaign of repression against Palestinian civil society”.

But according to Eqtaish, the DCIP had not made the connection between the complaint they had filed with the State Department and the subsequent raids until Paul’s comments on Monday, although Eqtaish added that Paul’s interpretation was “logical”.

“The organisation had already been under attack [by the Israeli authorities] for several years before the raids,” Eqtaish told MEE, adding: “[They wanted to] paralyse the organisation and prevent us from revealing Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian children.”

An atmosphere of uncertainty

In October 2021, the DCIP was designated a terrorist organisation by Israeli authorities along with five other Palestinian NGOs.

The move was condemned by the UN human rights commissioner as a “frontal attack on the Palestinian human rights movement and on human rights everywhere”.

In the immediate aftermath of the designation, Eqtaish said that, among the DCIP staff, the “whole atmosphere was surrounded with uncertainty…we didn’t know exactly when they would attack us again and what the type of attack would be,” he said.

Why Israel can torture detained Palestinian children with impunity
Read More »

Following the designation, NGO staff were inundated with queries from anxious donors.

“Instead of concentrating on our work, we had to respond to these questions,” Eqtaish told MEE. “The designation was threatening our existence as an organisation.”

Despite this, DCIP retained all but one of its donors.

“The main purpose of the designation was to dismantle our organisation, but we continue our work,” Eqtaish said.

Since the Second Intifada, in 2000, when DCIP began tracking Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military, Israeli forces have detained, interrogated, prosecuted and imprisoned approximately 13,000 Palestinian children.

Each year, the Israeli military detains between 500 and 700 Palestinian children.

Between 2016 and 2022, DCIP collected sworn affidavits from 766 Palestinian childrendetained by the Israeli military and prosecuted in Israeli military courts to track their experiences of ill-treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli forces.

This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.

Footage shows IDF parading scores of Palestinian men around in underwear

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/08/footage-idf-israel-military-parading-palestinian-men-around-in-underwear

Modesty is very in some cultures, including among Arabs and Muslims.  So this was totally another way to degrade and dehumanize the Palestinian people.  Hugs.  Scottie

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician, said on X the incident was a “blatant attempt at the humiliation & degradation of Palestinian men … stripped & displayed like war trophies”.


Israeli media claimed images show Hamas fighters but several civilians have been identified including a journalist

00:00:56
 

Footage shows Palestinian men stripped to underwear after detention in Gaza – video

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said it is concerned by images of semi-naked Palestinian men being paraded by the Israeli military in Gaza, adding that all of those detained must be treated in keeping with international humanitarian law.

“We strongly emphasise the importance of treating all those detained with humanity and dignity, in accordance with international humanitarian law,” Jessica Moussan, a spokesperson for the ICRC, said in a statement.

 

The video and photographs, which were shared on social media on Thursday evening, showed dozens of men, some bound and blindfolded, stripped to their underwear in several public locations.

While Israeli media initially suggested that the images, apparently filmed by at least one Israeli soldier, showed the surrender of Hamas fighters, several of the men pictured were identified as civilians, including a journalist.

Hani Almadhoun, who works at a US charity which raises funds for the UN’s Palestine relief agency, UNRWA, said he recognised his brother, Mahmoud, a shopkeeper, in one video.

“I recognised him immediately … and recognised the area as the same area they had been sheltering.”

Almadhoun, who lives in Virginia, said his sister identified his 27-year-old nephew Abood packed in with a bunch of men in the back of a military truck. Almadhoun’s father and 13-year-old nephew, Omar, were also detained.

All four were later released, said Hani, who added that none of them had links to militant groups.

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed (the New Arab) said its correspondent Diaa al-Kahlout was among them. In a statement, the news organisation said Kahlout had been rounded up along with his brothers, relatives and other civilians at the market street in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, and then “were forced to strip off their clothes and searched and humiliated before they were taken to an unknown location”.

The Committee to Protect Journalists called for his release as Husam Zomlot, head of the Palestinian Mission in London, said on X the images evoked “some of humanity’s darkest passages of history”.

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician, said on X the incident was a “blatant attempt at the humiliation & degradation of Palestinian men … stripped & displayed like war trophies”.

 
US risks ‘complicity in war crimes’, says Human Rights Watch – as it happened

The images and video show the men kneeling in the street or in a sandy location and were said to have been taken in several different places in Gaza. They emerged on Thursday evening not long after reports in Israeli media describing the surrender of dozens of members of Hamas around the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya.

There have also been conflicting reports about where the images were filmed. An Israeli government spokesperson claimed it was in the vicinity of Jabaliya and Shuja’iya, Hamas strongholds where there has been heavy street fighting since Israel resumed its ground offensive last week, while Palestinians – including a Hamas spokesperson – said the images were from Beit Lahiya, claiming the men had been rounded up at two UN schools being used as shelters, pointing to an identifying shop sign in one picture.

In one widely shared picture, dozens of men wearing only their underwear can be seen kneeling, many of them blindfolded, near a sandy berm with their hands apparently tied behind their backs while a group of Israeli soldiers stand over them.

It is not clear how and why the images came to be leaked. While the source of the images was not made explicit, one video – showing rows of men kneeling in a street, also stripped – appears to have been recorded by an Israeli soldier walking alongside the prisoners.

In another piece of footage, stripped men can be seen being transported in a military vehicle.

While the Israel Defense Forces – which were contacted by the Guardian about the source of the pictures and if they were officially distributed – have yet to comment, a spokesperson appeared to suggest that the Israeli military was arresting and interrogating all men it came across in areas where there was fighting.

An Israeli government spokesperson, Eylon Levy, insisted the men had been apprehended in areas he described as Hamas strongholds.

“We are talking about individuals who are apprehended in Jabaliya and Shuja’iya […] Hamas strongholds and centres of gravity,” he told a briefing.

“We are talking about military-age men who were discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago.”

Despite Israel’s warnings for civilians to evacuate, they are under no obligation to leave and tens of thousands of Palestinians still remain in combat areas, including Gaza’s north.

The Israeli military has been telling civilians to leave areas where it plans to operate after launching its campaign to eliminate Hamas in Gaza in response to the group’s murderous terror attacks in Israel on 7 October.

“[Hamas] are hiding underground and come out and we fight them,” said R Adm Daniel Hagari in response to a question at a press conference. “Whoever is left in those areas, they come out from tunnel shafts, and some from buildings, and we investigate who is linked to Hamas, and who isn’t. We arrest them all and interrogate them.”

Under international humanitarian law, combatants in armed forces captured in uniform are entitled to protection under the third Geneva convention, which requires that PoWs be treated humanely and with respect for their honour in all circumstances. They are protected against any act of violence, as well as against intimidation, insults and “exposure to public curiosity”.

While it is not clear that Hamas members would be covered by the convention, the apparent presence of civilians among those being paraded raises questions about their treatment.

The images came as further details were disclosed on how Israel is planning to prosecute detained Hamas members accused of involvement in the 7 October massacre in Israel.

The attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, and state attorney Amit Aisman issued a joint statement suggesting that special legal mechanisms would be required to prosecute those involved.

Describing 7 October as “an incident that was extraordinary and unprecedented in scope”, they said: “The law enforcement establishment needs to address the challenges of the complex investigation into the criminal acts of terrorism, as well as the complex legal issues that stem from those acts.”

Among possibilities that have been apparently discussed is a special tribunal, while some politicians have called for the imposition of the death penalty.

Ryan Grim Calmly Dismantles CNN’s Unhinged Pro-Israel Distraction Tactics

Jamaal Bowman Drops Facts On Republican Mike Lawler In Debate Over Conflict

Discussing a clip from the debate between Democratic congressman Jamaal Bowman and Republican congressman Mike Lawler (both of New York).

MSNBC & Fox News Join Forces To Smear Pramila Jayapal Following CNN Interview

Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal is facing smears from both Fox News and MSNBC following her appearance on CNN this past Sunday.

‘They Came in the Dark’: Settler Violence Intensifies in the West Bank

Since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, extremist settlers in the West Bank have been emboldened, displacing more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to the United Nations.

Let’s talk about the US, moral responsibility, and strategic defeat….

DeSantis, Newsom Debate

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Dec01-1.html

DeSantis, Newsom Debate

Last night was the big debate between Govs. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Gavin Newsom (D-CA). We’d like to give you a link so that if you missed it, and would like to watch, you could do so. However, at Fox, the news is a business and not a public service, and this was (technically) a regular episode of Hannity. So, if you want to watch it, you have to pay for Fox’s streaming service. Sorry. That said, here’s a pretty good 3-minute rundown of the highlights.

We watched it, of course, because that’s part of our responsibilities. And we’re going to give you our assessment by focusing on the four entities that were (or, in one case, were not) a part of the debate:

  1. Newsom: Newsom may have been going into hostile territory, but he almost certainly had the easier task, which was to establish himself as a credible candidate of national stature. And he managed to achieve his goal.

    Newsom would love, love, love to be butter-smooth, like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan, but he’s not that. It’s probably not a coincidence that all three of those men were either college professors or actors; two jobs that force you to learn how to read and respond to an audience. Newsom is also not a passionate, fire-breathing true believer, like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT); not that the Governor is shooting for that.

    No, Newsom is a wonky debater, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). That’s not an insult; Warren was a champion debater who was good enough at it to earn a college scholarship. Being like Warren means that Newsom had strong command of facts and statistics, that we was well-prepared for DeSantis’ lines of attack and was generally able to parry them, that he generally was capable of thinking on his feet and adapting when needed, and that he got off the occasional bon mot. Certainly the line of the night (which was undoubtedly pre-written) was when Newsom looked at DeSantis and said that “[what] we have in common is that neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.”

  2. DeSantis: DeSantis, meanwhile, had de facto home field advantage, but he had the harder task, namely to try to change the trajectory of the 2024 GOP primaries. The Governor did not come within a country mile of doing that.

    To start, DeSantis showed once again that he has exactly one facial expression, which is “grimace.” And he has one tone of voice, which is nasal/whiny. No matter what he says, whether it’s pro-Democratic or pro-Republican, it’s going to be kind of a turn off because he is kind of a turn off.

    Beyond that, however, DeSantis’ remarks and responses had three themes: California sucks, Democrats suck and Joe Biden sucks. If you can explain how any of those three messages help explain why you should vote for DeSantis instead of Donald Trump, then you are cleverer than we are.

    It is also the case that DeSantis seems to live in a fantasy world (but definitely not in Fantasyland, where he’s not welcome). Most obviously, his version of California is that it is a dystopian hellscape. This comports with Republican talking points, but not with reality. At various points, DeSantis claimed that California has made it legal for unhomed people to defecate on the sidewalk (he even held up a map of defecation hotspots in San Francisco) and to light their own encampments on fire, that it takes twice as long to shop in California because everything is under lock and key to prevent theft, and that women in the state can never wear jewelry in public because they are certain to be mugged. The Governor shared similar fantastical ideas about Democrats and about Biden.

    This is not to say that everything that came out of DeSantis’ mouth was a lie or an exaggeration, or that some of his ideas about California don’t have SOME basis in reality. For example, (Z), who walks around Los Angeles a lot, has seen human feces on the sidewalk… twice. At his local drug store, the razors, baby formula, cigarettes and liquor are under lock and key… while 95% of the inventory is not. And he knows a couple of women who turned their wedding rings around while in downtown. On the other hand, he’s been to Florida, and he’s seen most of these things there, too.

    Maybe there are people out there who accept everything DeSantis says uncritically. Probably there are. But anyone watching with even a sliver of an open mind surely has to be left with the impression that he’s as truth-challenged as Trump is, while being considerably less effective at selling his lies and exaggerations.

  3. Hannity: Hannity made clear that he should never, ever, ever be allowed to moderate a real debate, even if it’s candidates for assistant dogcatcher of East Cupcake. The first problem is that despite the fact that it was his show, and his studio, with microphones ostensibly controlled by his staff, he had absolutely no ability to enforce discipline. The candidates constantly talked over each other. Not only was Hannity unable to control it, but he eventually became petulant and whiny, at one point complaining that “I’m not a potted plant here!”

    The second problem is that a disproportionate number of Hannity’s questions were, to be blunt, stupid. For example, he asked the two governors to “grade” Joe Biden, while not allowing them to explain their choice of grade. Surprise, surprise; DeSantis gave Biden an “F” and Newsom gave an “A.” What on earth was the point of that exercise? What could possibly be learned from that? And there were a lot of questions of that sort, that basically boiled down to: “Please give me your talking point on [Subject X].”

    And the third problem is that Hannity started the debate by promising to be a neutral arbiter, but then spent the entire debate putting his thumb (and the rest of his hand, and arm) on the scale for DeSantis. To take one example, Hannity’s staff had a pre-prepared graphic that revealed that since 2019, California has had 19 mass shootings that killed 4 or more people while Florida has had 9 such shootings. This was part of the discussion of gun-control laws (California) or lack thereof (Florida), and was meant to help DeSantis make his point that gun-control laws don’t work.

    We are not experts on gun-violence statistics, but we suspect some cherry picking here. At very least, with such a small number of qualifying incidents per year, there has to be some amount of random variation here, which means that 4 years is too small a sample size. Also, the population of California is 39.24 million, while the population of Florida is 21.78 million, which means California has 180.1% of the population that Florida does. Meanwhile, 19 is 211% of 9. So, it would seem the primary difference between California and Florida when it comes to the total number of mass shootings is… California has way more people. And there were at least a dozen things like that, where Hannity and his team had chosen statistics or had made infographics clearly designed to prop up DeSantis.

  4. The Audience: One of Newsom’s requirements for attending the debate was “no audience,” and he got what he wanted. And wow, even with the two governors yelling over each other on a constant basis, the absence of an audience was still noticeable and a vast, vast improvement. Debates are not a football game, and the viewing audience does not need to be told what to think or feel by a bunch of howling yahoos.

Who knows if this is a one-off, or if it will establish some sort of tradition? We tend to suspect that DeSantis will not be eager to repeat the experiment, once someone tells him that he did himself absolutely no good when it comes to the 2024 presidential race, but that’s just a guess. (Z)