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'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

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Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#51
post #11

The things I've read about happening in Gaza are horrific. I'm ashamed that my taxes are funding this. It doesn't feel like there's much that can be done to change that. AIPAC has a very serious influence on our government and I worry that its impact is just leading to more deaths and more suffering.

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Why is Israel’s reaction worse? They seem to be reacting to an unprovoked attack by an openly genocidal neighbor with a pretty big-standard conventional war to eliminate the problem regime.

I’m not saying that Israel couldn’t be more mindful of optics or civilian casualties, but how is this war not justified?

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#53

I honestly don't think this subject should be on here. I don't think it's possible for a coherent or respectful or even useful conversation to happen here. I haven't seen any conversation about this topic that hadn't gone to hell.

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Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#54
Israel has also been imposing apartheid on Palestinians for years, a fact that high-ranking officials themselves admit [1][2], and which human rights reports confirm[3].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/06/israel-imposin...

[2] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-08-13/ty-article/ex...

[3] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#55
post #29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give more information about what you mean? Are you calling UN humanitarian aid some kind of "bankroll"? That feels disingenuous at best...

I’m saying that the “humanitarian aid” cannot be separated from support for Hamas (or rather, that Hamas will ensure that anything the UN does in Gaza will be to its benefit).

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Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#56
Those are the most serious allegations:

"The men and teenage boys were taken to a warehouse where they sat on a bare floor covered in scattered grains of rice. There they were beaten, interrogated and verbally abused. There was no sleep, and the grains of rice cut their skin as they sat there, undressed."

A man claims: "Some people didn’t return from the torture sessions. We would hear their screams and then nothing.”

From what I read, it seems typical of counterinsurgency war. A testimony is no proof but humiliation and torture is commonplace is counterinsurgency wars, whether systematic or an initiative of lower ranking soldiers operating on the ground, so it's not an extraordinary statement. And torture can obviously lead to death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterinsurgency

Now I am going to argue something polemic and I am arguing it in the spirit of discussion. I'd love to read well argued counter-arguments :

However supportive of Israel one may be and how repulsed one should be by Hamas, I'd say that we should not fool ourselves in that the military operation in Gaza is Israel defending itself ("Israel's right to defend itself" is now a commonplace phrase) rather than avenging itself. You may think it is justified in doing so but it still is payback imho.

In my country's law, individual self-defense is defined as such :

1. It has to happen in the same time as the agression

2. Its only purpose is to defend against the agression

3. The defense has to be proportionate

It seems that so 1. is not met since once all the militants having trespassed having been killed, Israel was no more defending itself. and it's hard to believe that the civilian collateral damage is just defending either. I'd say the third criteria is met in so far as Hamas has rockets and automatic weapons.

Is that an unreasonable take ?

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#58
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, the "benefit of the doubt" has been lost in relation to this subject. I no longer believe it is possible to have any thread about this remain civil. It's tragic and a tragic subject, although I dispute the "there couldn't be a more significant current event" - lots of events are equally (or more) significant and relevant. I hope to be proven wrong, but I have doubts.

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The white phosphorus Israel is using in Lebanon and Palestine is manufactured in Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#59

> “When they spoke to us in Hebrew and we wouldn’t understand, they’d beat us up,” he continues. > “They hit me in the back where my kidneys are and my legs. They took my family, and I don’t know where they are,” he says, his voice breaking. > Before they were forced inside the warehouse, Israeli female soldiers came and spat on the men, Mohammed recalls. > In the warehouse, it was common for groups of five soldiers…

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Re: 'Like we were lesser humans': Gaza boys, men recall Israeli arrest, torture

#60

> “When they spoke to us in Hebrew and we wouldn’t understand, they’d beat us up,” he continues. > “They hit me in the back where my kidneys are and my legs. They took my family, and I don’t know where they are,” he says, his voice breaking. > Before they were forced inside the warehouse, Israeli female soldiers came and spat on the men, Mohammed recalls. > In the warehouse, it was common for groups of five soldiers…

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Might want to check your sources. The released prisoner with broken hands is Mohammed Nazzal; the one greeting his family is Mohammed Shatara.

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/video-misidentifies-pales...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67581915

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