My thoughts on the rape allegations🧵
I fully support an impartial international investigation & oppose out of hand denialism!
There's a range of crucial questions & uncertainties to answer (some raised by Israeli scholars) in order to make a "weaponization of rape" conclusion👇
2\ Question 1: What is the compelling evidence alleged rape incidents were used as "a weapon of war"?
To establish "weaponization" of alleged rape rather than individual incidents, 2 prerequisites need to be fulfilled.
That it was *both*
a) Premeditated/instructed
b) Systematic
3\ The NYT article doesn't show any argument that the alleged rape was premeditated/instructed.
The authors did well to NOT cite any "confessions of rape" by detained Gazans in Israeli prisons b/c Israel's own Physicians for Human Rights dismissed them as extracted under torture
4\ Israel "leaked" videos of kidnapped & visibly tortured Gazans as "Hamas operatives' admissions of rape", like Muhammad Nahed Al-Arja (21) whose family announced he & his 2 cousins went missing & has been seeking help to locate them & says they were NEVER affiliated with Hamas!
5\ Was the alleged rape systematic?
NYT cites unnamed IDF soldiers & ZAKA volunteers that they overall found 30 bodies with "signs of abuse"
On Oct 7, ≈3,000 militants crossed into Israel
Serious question to experts: is 30 out of 3000 sufficient to establish it was systematic?
6\Question 2: Does NYT have evidence to link the alleged rape to Hamas militants?
After Hamas' Nokhba took over IDF military bases surrounding Gaza & the separation fence collapsed, militants from at least 7 other groups rushed in without a central command & acted individually..
7\ A witness quoted by NYT claims he saw 5 men in "civilian clothes" committing an alleged act of rape
Hamas militants wore military gear & (often) green arm or head bands..
To establish a "weaponization" of alleged rape, there's a need for evidence linking these acts to Hamas
8\ Israel itself says ONLY 1 person -out of over 200 militants detained on Oct 7 & 1000s detained in Gaza- allegedly "admitted" (under torture) to committing an act of rape
That alleged detainee is from the PIJ not Hamas & Israel hasn't found his alleged "victim" yet
9\ Question 3: Did the NYT consider that some of the quoted witnesses have changed parts of their testimonies or had previously made other allegations that were proven to be false? Does this impact their testimony here?
Was any background check conducted about the interviewees?
10\ E.g. Shari Mendes told NYT she only saw 4 women with signs of sexual abuse, inc. some with “a lot of blood in their pelvic areas”
But Shari said elsewhere she saw "evidence of MASS rape of so brutal that they *broke* their victims’ pelvis – women, grandmothers, children"!
11\ Shari had also claimed elsewhere to have seen a "decapitated pregnant woman and her beheaded unborn child" (a claim debunked by Haaretz)
She had also expressed strong opinions on Gaza re how the PR battle for Israel's image "may make the military battlefield look easy".
12\ Sapir is a witness who describes militants allegedly raping & stabbing 2 women to death.
But she said elsewhere the victim was shot in the head in the middle of the act of rape "he didn't even pick up his pants"
Did NYT consider if there was a conflict between the 2 claims?
13\ Sapir also claimed she saw 3 women allegedly beheaded. (Evidence?)
Early on, Israel provided evidence of only 1 female corpse burned & the head severed in unclear circumstances (2 male soldiers were decapitated after they were killed allegedly by Kata'ib Mujahideen & PIJ).
14\ Raz Cohen -ex-soldier who trains Congolese troops- changed his testimony multiple times until the NYT interview
Also the paramedic quoted in the article had earlier alleged a 1-year-old baby was stabbed & "tossed into the garbage". On Oct 7, only 1 baby was shot, not stabbed
15\I understand the extreme sensitivity of this topic to women & victims & wish in no way to minimize what may have happened on Oct 7
Please understand it's also an extremely sensitive topic to Palestinians as it's being weaponized for dehumanizion & genocidal incitement re Gaza
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Just read the "research" cited here by an org whose own co-founder called it "a far-right, deeply anti-Muslim racist organisation, run in the most dictatorial, corrupt & undemocratic fashion & utilized as a propaganda outfit".
As expected their report is a fraud🧵
1\ Author's main assumption is Gaza's causality figure is impossible b/c that'd mean Israel is targeting civilians & there's "no evidence" of this.
The ICC prosecutor literally charged Netanyahu with the Crime against Humanity of extermination for deliberately killing civilians!
2\ The author claims he found an error whereby 103 entries of killed men were mistakenly registered as women in a database of 44,000 causalities
That's his main "evidence" that the number of Gazan women killed by Israel has been widely inflated by a whopping 1%
🚨Israel is aiding ISIS-linked terrorists & criminals to sow chaos & famine in Gaza:
Shadi al-Sofi, a wanted murderer & son of an informant/collaborator with Israel, & Yasser abu Shabab, a drug dealer, are the main warlords responsible for looting most aid under IDF protection.
They formed gangs of over 200 armed criminals & “established a military like compound” (per the UN) in an emptied "death zone" fully under IDF control, where they looted only this Saturday night about 100 aid trucks at once.
This way Israel can absolve itself of responsibility for its deliberate starvation policy in Gaza and say “look, we’re letting aid in, it’s Hamas’ fault that food doesn’t reach people” (as claimed by Senator Jon Fetterman yesterday).
IDF soldiers never fire at those gang members as they loot aid right in front of Israeli tanks & troops in a closed military zone that no Gazan is allowed into. The IDF only fires at local policemen whenever they try to prevent the looting.
Yasser Abu Shabab was arrested by Gaza's local police multiple times in the past for drug smuggling & trading, which is often facilitated by ISIS groups in Sinai.
Hamas militants attempted to eliminate him yesterday in an attack that killed 11 of his gang, including his brother & partner Fathi & the gang's accountant. 30 others were wounded.
Shadi Al-Sofi murdered in 2020 Jabr al-Qeeq, a PLFP member whom Israel had sentenced to life & imprisoned for 15 years for killing al-Sofi's father during the 1st Intifada for spying on Palestinians for Israel.
Al-Sofi was convicted in a Gazan court & the local police captured him in a special operation in late 2020, before he broke out of prison with the help of ISIS-linked militants & was smuggled out of Gaza to Sinai, then reportedly to Israel's Negev. He returned to Gaza with the IDF ground invasion where he now co-leads the criminal gangs that loot aid & sabotage humanitarian work under IDF protection.
2\ This is the moment Gaza' police captured Shadi al-Sofi in 2020 for murdering Jabr al-Qeeq.
Al-Sofi was sentenced to death in court, before militants broke him out of prison & smuggled him into Sinai in 2021, only to return to Gaza 3 years later with the IDF invasion
3\Haaretz confirms the gangs looting aid under IDF protection are affiliated with terrorist groups like ISIS
The gangs operate just 100 meters from IDF tanks & troops, who only fire at civilians or policemen entering the area but never at those gangs haaretz.com/israel-news/20…
🚨Israel is systematically RAPING Palestinians, inc children & elderly, as a weapon of war:
2 journalists provide frightening testimonies about how IDF soldiers would randomly select a group of Gazan hostages, unleash dogs to "tear at their skin & flesh", RAPE them & film it🧵
2\ Israeli soldiers beat to a pulp then RAPED a Gazan hostage with a fire extinguisher, emptied inside him until he lost consciousness! Doesn't speak since
Another was stripped naked, soldiers put a dog on top of him to rip his flesh & electrocuted his genitals with high voltage
3\ Israeli soldiers are torturing & RAPING Gazan hostages at random; the elderly & children are not spared!
Mainstream media is deliberately NOT showing us the other side of the Amsterdam clashes; Israeli hooligans attacking local residents, chanting genocidal slogans & vandalising Palestinian flags.
Classic propaganda & disinformation by omission, followed by selective condemnations.
2\ As always, the story for mainstream media begins as soon as Israelis are attacked, never when they attack. They're always THE victim & only victim. Innocents only persecuted b/c of their faith of ethnicity is the classic narrative!
3\ Violence against civilians is never justified, no matter by who against whom.
But for mainstream media & Western politicians, they have broken moral compass that never point any fingers of blame when Israelis are violent. They only wake up when it's the other way around!
When the genocide ends, I can write a giant book on mainstream media journalists who constantly wasted hours & hours of my & my colleagues time to do unrequited toil & collect indisputable evidence for them of Israeli crimes, only to NEVER publish a single word, ever!
2\ Journalist A last Dec: can you send me geolocation, footage from multiple angles, eyewitnesses, dates... of Israel shooting civilians raising white flags?
They never published a word
A few weeks ago same journalist: can you send me more recent incidents, the story is old now
Journalist B: can you send me the names of every single bakery Israel has bombed since the start of the war, their geolocation, date of bombing, footage, eyewitnesses...
Basically do the whole job for them unaccredited & they slap their name on it.