Israeli Hostage Says She Was Sexually Assaulted and Tortured in Gaza (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 7 months ago by breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca to c/world@lemmy.world

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Ms. Soussana, 40, is the first Israeli to speak publicly about being sexually assaulted during captivity after the Hamas-led raid on southern Israel. In her interviews with The Times, conducted mostly in English, she provided extensive details of sexual and other violence she suffered during a 55-day ordeal.

Ms. Soussana’s personal account of her experience in captivity is consistent with what she told two doctors and a social worker less than 24 hours after she was freed on Nov. 30. Their reports about her account state the nature of the sexual act; The Times agreed not to disclose the specifics.

. . .

For months, Hamas and its supporters have denied that its members sexually abused people in captivity or during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. This month, a United Nations report said that there was “clear and convincing information” that some hostages had suffered sexual violence and there were “reasonable grounds” to believe sexual violence occurred during the raid, while acknowledging the “challenges and limitations” of examining the issue.

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[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 65 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Well. This is pretty significant. I would say it's rather damning evidence that considerably raises the bar to doubt these claims.

There's a lot I could say here. Hamas is a bunch reprehensible fucks. It's disappointing that we needed concrete evidence because of how untrustworthy the IDF is. But I think the most salient and important point here is that there is no "good guy" or "right side" among the war combatants. It's awful people fighting awful people. Hamas and the IDF both deserve nothing but contempt and scorn, and both should be dismantled for their crimes against humanity.

I've tried to be very precise with my wording because none of what I just said applies to the Palestinian nor Israeli people. The civilians and innocent people are caught between two legions of hell and are the ones paying the price. The kidnapped and tortured Israelis, the Palestinian people -- both of them are suffering at the hands of both Hamas and the Israeli government.

Neither of them care about the civilians. They use them as lambs for sacrifice and control the flow of information to manufacture hate and support for the war. It's become readily apparent that the IDF and Hamas just want to keep fighting, and they're manipulating the civilians to support them. If both peoples were getting the true, unfiltered information -- sights of dying Palestinian children, demolished buildings, accounts of Israeli hostages -- I think they'd be appalled at what "their side" is doing.

I really hope the majority would be appalled, because there can't be any peace until they recognize their shared suffering and humanity. And to be clear, the majority of suffering is clearly inflicted on the Palestinians.

Edit: I'm not angry at the downvotes but damn am I disappointed. You'd think "fuck the people genociding others and fuck the people taking hostages" would be an uncontroversial position, but here we are.

[-] fastandcurious@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Reason this is controversial is because hamas is literally the same thing as IDF, bibi funded it and that much genocide also radicalized a shit ton of people, hamas is an asset of Israel, they shouldn’t be equated to palestine in anyway

This exact story will now be used to justify all the war crimes Israel has been doing, when hamas does something, Israel should be the one held accountable, not Palestine, there are no ‘two sides’, its only one side continuously killing the innocent

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

No disagreement here really. This doesn't justify Israel's war crimes at all. Whether Hamas is effectively the same as the IDF or not, they're a bunch of radicalized shitheads who do not in any way represent the Palestinians. They're closer to ruling dictators than they are champions of the people.

[-] fastandcurious@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

You are right, but when you make the both sides bad argument, the pro genocide have an excuse ‘Oh hamas bad as well’ but the thing is the very reason hamas exists is because of Israel, and then according to me alteast Israel should be held equally accountable

[-] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Something I've recently realized is that I can and should do more to call out the genocide proponents. I generally don't engage with them because there's no intelligent discussion to be had there, and there's a lot more interesting and nuanced things to talk about with people who agree this is a genocide that needs to stop.

But, that does give the illusion that the genocide proponents aren't being challenged, and that instead of harshly criticizing Israel I'm just saying "both sides bad". That's something I'm going to try and improve on, because I need to make it crystal clear that Hamas' actions are not even remotely an excuse for the IDF to be genocidal.

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[-] nammi@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago

Well the problem is one is the occupier and the one is the occupied. And people talk as if Hamas is the Palestinians problem and that it all started October 7th.

Treat people and respect them as humans, don’t put them in open-air prisons, and divide people into an apartheid system, then maybe you won’t have any terrorist attacks and/or rapes.

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[-] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

"And now you can't call us out for totally fucking up with that other article."

[-] Hedlosa@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 months ago

Just joined Lemmy, holy shit this instance is full of nazis and genocide apologists what the fuck, tell me how many women do you think the IDF have raped over the last 75 years? Hell even just since oct 7?

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this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024

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