[News] Israelis cheer footage appearing to show Palestinians abused by soldiers

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-cheer-footage-show-soldiers-abuse>
Israelis cheer footage appearing to show Palestinians abused by soldiers
By Rayhan Uddin - November 1, 2023
------------------------------

Far-right Israeli <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel> groups
on messaging apps have shared and celebrated graphic videos of what appears
to be Palestinian <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine>
workers in the occupied West Bank being abused by Israeli soldiers.

Several of these videos were published on the "Without Limits" Israeli
right-wing Telegram channel on Tuesday, which has over 117,000 subscribers,
among other right-wing groups.

In one harrowing video, blindfolded Palestinian men with cable ties around
their hands are seen being assaulted by heavily armed troops. The men -
some of whom have been stripped entirely naked - can be heard screaming
while lying on the floor.

Soldiers drag them across the ground, while one Israeli soldier steps on a
detainee's head. His colleagues are heard laughing in the background.

The clip has almost 2,000 laughing emoji reactions to it, with hundreds of
celebration emojis, as well as love-eye reactions.

"Burn in hell terrorists you deserve it. Hope the soldiers abused them
well," read one of the most-liked comments under the video. "Hope that
without the camera, [the soldiers] fuck their mothers," read another
comment.

"It's very good not to kill them so that they will live and suffer and
every breath they breathe will be in suffering and agony," wrote one user.

One of the comments expresses concern about the visibility of such abuse to
the outside world.

"Please delete, it is not good for the world to see us doing this," it said.

Another video shows a blindfolded and handcuffed man on his knees, next to
a car. An Israeli troop says "Good morning, you whore!" in Arabic, before
kicking the man and spitting on him.

That clip also had hundreds of comments and reactions celebrating the abuse
and inciting violence against Palestinians.

A third video shows an Israeli military officer humiliating a blindfolded
Palestinian man by playing music and forcing him to dance along.
Gaza workers detained by Israel

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Geneva-based rights group, determined
<https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5906/Egregious-acts-of-torture,-abuse-committed-by-Israeli-army-against-Palestinian-civilians-in-the-West-Bank>
the video of the men stripped naked and assaulted as having taken place in
the town of Yatta, in the Hebron governorate in the occupied West Bank.

Middle East Eye could not independently verify the people in the video or
when the assaults took place.

Local sources told MEE that the videos are of Palestinian workers recently
arbitrarily detained by Israeli authorities. It is not clear whether they
are from Gaza or the West Bank.

Following Hamas's surprise attack on Israeli communities on 7 October, in
which around 1,400 Israelis were killed and 240 captives were taken to
Gaza, Israel revoked the work permits of all Gaza residents.

Israel has responded with a relentless bombardment of the besieged enclave,
killing at least 8,796 Palestinians, including 3,648 children and 2,290
women.

Around 18,500 Palestinians from Gaza hold permits issued by Israeli
authorities, though it is not known how many were in Israel when the
permits were revoked following the outbreak of war
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/israel-palestine-war>. The Erez
crossing between Israel and Gaza has been closed, and workers have been
unable to return home.

According to six human rights organisations, Israel has detained
<https://hamoked.org/document.php?dID=Updates2378> many of these workers
from Gaza and placed them in detention facilities "against their will,
without legal authority and without legal grounds".

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-gaza-civil-defence-forced-leave-hundreds-victims-under-rubble>

Israel-Palestine war: Gaza's civil defence forced to leave hundreds of
victims under rubble

The groups said last week that one worker from Gaza testified that he was
held in a "cage-like structure" with no access to food, water, medication
or a toilet, before being transferred to an encampment akin to a "livestock
pen".

"At a certain point, an officer told the detainees that they were being
held because there were Israeli hostages in Gaza, and that as long as the
Israeli hostages were in Gaza, there was no prospect of the workers’
release," the rights groups wrote.

They added that Israel had provided no information about the individuals
being detained or what they were charged with, adding that this was
unlawful under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Palestinian Authority's labour ministry estimated that around 4,500
workers from Gaza were missing. Others were forcibly taken
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-gaza-workers-permits-revoked>
to the occupied West Bank.

MEE has reached out to the Israeli military for comment on the content of
the videos shared on Telegram of its troops appearing to abuse
Palestinians.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20231101/74be835d/attachment-0001.htm>