Practices recorded by UNRWA include the use of a nail gun on prisoners’ knees, sexual abuse against both men and women and the insertion of what appears to be an electrified metal stick into prisoners’ rectums.

  • @Dasus@lemmy.world
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    283 months ago

    One still constantly sees people defending Israel and saying this isn’t a genocide and that Israel isn’t committing crimes against humanity.

    I’d like to see one defend this.

    Practices recorded by UNRWA include the use of a nail gun on prisoners’ knees, sexual abuse against both men and women and the insertion of what appears to be an electrified metal stick into prisoners’ rectums.

    “They were beating me with an extendable metal bar. There was blood on my trousers and when they saw it, they beat me there. They used a nail gun on my knee. These nails were kept in my knee for about 24 hours until I was transported to Naqab prison,” one 26-year-old male told UNRWA of his 56 days in Israeli custody

    He recounts being held in a group of more than 100 men who all endured days of “beatings, hunger and cold”, adding that they were kept blindfolded, not allowed to sleep and were forced to spend most of the day kneeling.

    “If someone lifted the blindfold off their eyes,” he said, “he would be called over by the soldiers and beaten then strung up on the barbed wire fence.”

    Another detained man told UNRWA: “They made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire – I have burns [in the anus]. The soldiers hit me with their shoes on my chest and used something like a metal stick that had a small nail on the side,” he said.

    They asked us to drink from the toilet and made the dogs attack us,” he recalled, before describing how he had seen the bodies of “maybe nine” people who had been detained and killed, including one who had died after they had “put the electric stick up his [anus]. He got so sick, we saw worms coming out of his body and then he died,” he said

    Khaled el-Nabreis from the Khan Younis refugee camp told Al Jazeera that he and several other men spent three days with no food or water, “only beatings, and when we slept they would cover us with wet blankets in the bitter cold” after they were detained by Israeli forces, taken to a location he did not recognise.

    (three days is the upper end of the average of how long healthy humans can go without water, btw)

    #Stacking the deck

    In January, Israel accused several UNRWA employees of participating in the attacks of October 7

    In a reported attempt to coerce confessions to support the accusations, Israeli interrogators tortured UNRWA staff they detained in Gaza, some of whom they took as they were carrying out their duties as staff of the international relief agency.

    In detention, the UNRWA staff endured “severe physical beatings; waterboarding; exposure to dogs; threats of violence … rape, and electrocution; verbal and psychological abuse; threats of murder, injury or other harm to their family members; humiliating and degrading treatment; being forced to strip naked and subjected to photographs,” according to the report.

    Israel has long begrudged the presence of UNRWA within Gaza. It has blamed the agency’s reports of its forces targeting civilian infrastructure, including its schools and first responder stations for the criticism during the International Court of Justice’s preliminary judgement on 26 January, when South Africa charged Israel with committing genocide during its war on Gaza. This prospect grows more likely as aid is blocked and the besieged population is tilted ever further towards famine.

    As hunger worsens, with 15 children reported to have starved to death in recent days, UNRWA’s role in helping prevent what agencies are warning of a “humanitarian crisis” grows increasingly vital.

    • adONis
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      113 months ago

      I’d like to see one defend this

      Well, you see… according ro IDF, the hamas are hiding within these peoples anuses. So they need to electrify their rectums, to get these guys out there. I mean, it’s obvious, duuugh!

    • @JustZ@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Nobody with any credibility will defend these actions if they are true.

      Personally, I do not find an “unpublished report” of nameless and dateless “accounts” from UNRWA, an agency that is Gaza’s largest employer–a significant number of whose employees and managers are supporters and accomplices to Hamas’s continued power in Gaza as a matter of basic math–to be very credible. Especially when it comes to such outrageous, unbelievable, claims.

      And for me it’s doubly true when the coverage of the report (of the accounts) is from Qatari state media, funded by mega donors to Islamist nationalist movements. Notice how it cites to itself as verification of the report. Absolutely zero of the accounts have been independently verified, and if someone chimes in below with a link to other coverage, they will likely at least have the decency to say conspicuously that the accounts are unverified.

      Fuck me for not believing it, right Hamas fans? It’s not like Hamas and it’s supporters would ever lie or exaggerate to perpetuate its own overt violations of international law as a part of a formal tactic known as lawfare! 🤡

      What exactly does one call the coverage of a report of accounts, fourth hand information? Fifth?

      Needless to say, if any of the accounts are found to be true, or to have been witnessed by other Israeli soldiers who failed to intervene, I have some hope that the perpetrators will be tried and convicted of their crimes. As opposed to in Gaza, where confessed perpetrators of overt war crimes get prizes.

      • @Dasus@lemmy.world
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        103 months ago

        There always has to be one IDF troll.

        https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against

        GENEVA (19 February 2024) – UN experts today expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

        But to you, the entire rest of the world is magically in Hamas’ pocket because they call you out on this asinine bullshit.

        Guess Israel is a better judge of weather Israel is committing warcrimes than the UN would be right? Like asking Trump if he’s guilty of anything.

        Bombing women and children and you’re proud of it or so weakwilled you’ve bought into the propaganda saying that shooting the kids is fine, because they’re probably Hamas anyway.

        Israel is a piece of shit fascist theocracy, and currently killing and raping innocents, and defending them is morally indefensible and will be seen mostly the same as WWII era Germans who didn’t oppose the holocaust.

        • @JustZ@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Bud your link literally has nothing to do with this post and the specific allegations in this Al Jazeera coverage of a certain report. Seems like you’re emotions are pretty heavily wrapped up in all this. Good luck with that.

          Now make a list of Hamas’s war crimes. And make a list of everyone who’s ever been prosecuted by Hamas for a war crime. The list is zero people long. How you going to sit here and condemn Israel when they at least have a justice system based on something other than total religious superstition and hysteria, which is what they have in Gaza?

          • @Dasus@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            “If any of the accounts

            There’s plenty, which is what I just proved. Your trolling just relied on putting down the source, so there’s the UN experts.

            That doesn’t change anything though, you IDF trolls tend to argue “UN is actually led by Hamas”.

            “Now make a list of Hamas’ warcrimes”

            First off, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

            Secondly, did your mom never teach you two wrongs don’t make a right?

            Thirdly, the death toll in #Gaza has surpassed 30,000 — a large majority women and children.

            But again, you’re just gonna argue that all those kids were Hamas.

            Fourth, is the state of Israel a member of the UN or a terrorist organisation? Because there are standards for members of the UN, whereas for terrorist organisations…

            There is no depth to what sort of mental gymnastics you’ll get up to defending Israel’s atrocities, because you can’t even conceive you’ve been brainwashed.

            It turns my stomach.

            Also you edited your earlier comment after my reply to it. Tsk tsk

              • @Dasus@lemmy.world
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                93 months ago

                Sure it is, lil’ trollito.

                That’s why you now ignore everything previously discussed. Because you argue that “if any of the reports are true” and then I link the UN Human Rights Office report about sexual assaults on Palestinians, and you conveniently ignore that.

                You also ignore how you’re using whataboutism, a known propaganda technique, to try to say “well, but what about Hamas’ crimes”. But weirdly you don’t answer when I ask you is Israel a member of the UN or a terrorist organisation?

                Just like I said, no limit to your mental gymnastics. IDF trolls, smh

                You don’t feel the tiniest bit guilty defending a supposedly democratic state that is slaughtering children? Over 12,300 children have been killed in Gaza. Were they all Hamas members? Or perhaps just innocent Palestinians?

                • @JustZ@lemmy.world
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                  -93 months ago

                  Bud your link did the same thing as the Al Jazeera article. It found reports troubling. It didn’t verify the reports. Hamas has as a tactic exaggerating and lying and the population helps them with it. It is working on you.

                  Oh boo hoo I didn’t answer your loaded and nonsense rhetorical question. Are you quizzing me on UN member states?

                  My position is pretty consistent I think. Not really any mental gymnastics involved. I have a consistent model.

                  I find your model inconsistent and ignorant. Do I feel guilty? No. I’m sad for the dead for sure but this was and remains part of Hamas’s plan after October 7. They should surrender but martyrdom is a revered tradition in Hamas’s Gaza, so they won’t. There answer to every ceasefire proposal is no. They could turn themselves in and scuttle the tunnels right now and not one more bomb would fall, but Hamas and their faithful literally want as many fellow civilians to die as possible. Look how well it has worked on you.

                  Tell me, is telling your countrymen that calls to evacuate are a hoax and to instead go stand on the roof of your building a legitimate tactic of resistance?

      • @juicyOP
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        93 months ago

        All of the mainstream media outlets have published articles on the UNWRA report. This is just the most recent coverage.

        • @smcool@feddit.de
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          03 months ago

          They just report them, that doesn’t verify the content. Especially since all report it as not verified.

        • @JustZ@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Here’s the last sentence of CNN’s article on this:

          CNN cannot confirm the allegations.

          That’s legitimate journalism.

          Oh look it’s exactly what I said it would say.

        • @JustZ@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Ha. That’s a good one!

          Sometimes, for some things, they have good coverage. They are playing to their audience and they are as bad as Fox News, which many people think is a very reputable organization.

          I’ll tell you what I would tell them, just because you like what they say doesn’t mean they’re reputable.