Aug 13, 2024 - Protesters, politicians and TV commentators in Israel are defending the right of soldiers to mistreat and even rape Palestinian prisoners in detention. The show of support follows the gang rape of a male detainee by a group of Israeli reservists.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3F8WY-WW7Y

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Israel Is Torturing Palestinian Prisoners to Death — With US Complicity

8/12/2024 - “It’s more horrific than Abu Ghraib,” Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajneh, who had access to the camp, told Israel-based +972 Magazine in June. He continued:

I have been in this profession for 15 years…. I never expected to hear about rape of prisoners or humiliations like that. And all this is not for the purpose of interrogation — since most prisoners are only interrogated after many days of detention — but as an act of revenge. To take revenge on whom? They are all citizens [civilians], young people, adults, and children.

Mahajneh recounted to Al Jazeera that Israeli soldiers gang-raped six Palestinian prisoners in front of the other prisoners at Sde Teiman.

Recently, Sde Teiman has been the subject of a political storm and civil unrest in Israel after Israeli police stormed into the camp and arrested nine soldiers accused of raping and torturing a Palestinian hostage so severely that he had to be hospitalized. The unnamed hostage was transferred to the hospital with gruesome injuries that required surgery. Israeli media outlets reported that the victim lost his ability to walk. On July 30, Israel’s Channel 12 released horrific footage showing a group of Israeli soldiers gang-raping the Palestinian hostage. Aware of the security cameras, the soldiers, who belong to a military unit known as Force 100, are seen raping the hostage while holding shields in an attempt to obscure their actions. The video shows dozens of other hostages laid on the floor, blindfolded and handcuffed. (One can only imagine the unspeakable horrors that unfold when the camera is off.)

Despite the reported atrocities, Israeli politicians and journalists have rushed to defend the soldiers, hailing them as “heroes,” stating openly that it’s “legitimate” to rape Palestinian detainees, and arguing that torture and rape of Palestinians must be regulated and made official policy in Israel. In a panel discussion following the footage release, Israeli journalist Yehuda Schlesinger, of Israel Hayom newspaper, said: “The only thing that is a problem for me here is that there is no regulated policy by the state for abusing the detainees, because, first of all, they deserve it, and it’s great revenge, and should serve us as a deterrent.”

The U.S. has allowed Israel to carry out these atrocities despite overwhelming evidence of “a preventable crime against humanity,” to cite UN experts. U.S. politicians have gone to unimaginable extremes to shield their genocidal allies from accountability, with some even threatening to dismantle the international legal system altogether. https://truthout.org/articles/israel-is-torturing-palestinian-prisoners-to-death-with-us-complicity/