10mo ago

UN team says rape, gang rape likely occurred during Hamas attack on Israel

www.reuters.com /world/middle-east/un-team-says-rape-gang-rape-likely-occurred-during-hamas-attack-israel-2024-03-04/

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The U.N. team said it also received information from institutional and civil society sources and direct interviews, about "sexual violence against Palestinian men and women in detention settings, during house raids and at checkpoints" after Oct. 7. The detention centers were in Israel.
The U.N. team said it raised the allegations with the Israeli Ministry of Justice and Military Advocate General, which said no complaints of sexual violence against members of the Israeli Defense Forces had been received.
One side is a literal terrorist group and the other is supposed to be the beacon of freedom and western values...
But Israel denies it ever happens and not only doesn't investigate reports, they don't actually record them anywhere.
It's state sponsored and approved.
Which explains why the people who have been their victims for generations sink to the same level as their oppressors.

I thought we knew this already
- We know that the initial allegations from NYT were completely false and made up. And that there is zero forensic evidence. This just seems like another PR stunt from israel.
  Edit: New breaking points video detailing how broken this report is. A big takeaway is this quote from the UN "investigator"herself:
  
  I don't think NYT was the only one making those allegations. They came from many directions afaik.
  This just seems like another PR stunt from israel.
  This is from an UN team of experts though

This is completely, utterly uncontroversial, except by a subset of the extreme far left at war with reality. Let's see where the downvote ratio ends up.
- What's controversial is the depiction of Palestinians as rapists and outlining a systemic, racial, or cultural issue of rape within Arab populations, then pointing to the few instances it does occur as proof for a racist point of view.
  Both parties are guilty of rape and sexual assault. None of that is okay. However only one is being racially profiled as having an innate proclivity for rape.
  
  I just saw people saying the attackers raped people during the attack.
  
  Nobody is saying this. It's kind of racist to even assume people are, actually.
  Hamas raped a bunch of people on October 7th and the far left can't handle that without making it a systemic race issue. That's pretty fucked up.
- It's hard to believe when israel lies about everything constantly. Once people saw how the 40 babies rumor was being spread by israel, it's normal to be critical of information.
  
  I encourage you to look into how an Israeli soldier saying "1 decapitated, 40 burned" got turned into "40 decapitated" by a game of telephone. The Israeli government never claimed that, and clarified when they got asked by journalists.

Israel and Hamas are both bad, roast me
- That's not really the point here. If you haven't noticed, recently a lot of people on Lemmy have been suggesting that the reports of rape on Oct 7th were made up or propaganda.
  The UN saying that it likely happened is important to counter that propaganda.
  Similar to if reports of shooting civilians by IDF were being denied but then validated by 3rd party investigators, rational people should rightfully want to see that spread to counter misleading propaganda.

So the conclusion is that there are rape happening on both sides in a war. That is somewhat unsurprising considering they hate each other and are distinctly different groups of people. Why is it being tolerated by the organisations involved? Probably they are not prioritizing the issue. Why would they deny that it is happening? Probably for PR reasons. They prefer dealing with it internally, at a later date, when it is convenient.
- Isn't rape one of the normal aspects of war anyway? Or am I missing something here.
  
  lets not pretend anything about war is normal, please.

This is like the third time that we're hearing this bullshit. The NYT article did every possible thing they could to find any "evidence" up to the point that they just started making things up.
From the word "likely" it's clear that there is once again no real evidence, just some IDF mouthpieces that got their stories in order.
Where is the UN report by the way? It is not linked in this article which is very poorly sourced.

Read the article and there's zero evidence as before. "Credible circumstantial information", what does that even mean?
Just more Western media doing what they do best, lie on behalf of Israel.
- Ah yes the UN famous Western media outlet
- DNA evidence, fingerprints, blood, etc are all "credible circumstantial information". It's a common category of evidence, encompassing pretty much everything except direct testimony.
- There's literally video and images thanks to hamas body cams. It's rough going and I doubt you'd watch it.
- At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, there are reasonable grounds to believe
  that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or
  gang rape and then killed or killed while being raped. Credible sources described finding 5
  murdered individuals, mostly women, whose bodies were naked from their waist down – and
  some totally naked – tied with their hands behind their backs, many of whom were shot in the
  head. On Road 232, credible information based on witness accounts describe an incident of the
  rape of two women by armed elements. Other reported instances of rape could not be verified in
  the time allotted. The mission team also found a pattern of bound naked or partially naked bodies
  from the waist down, in some cases tied to structures including trees and poles, along Road 232.
  In kibbutz Re’im, the mission team further verified an incident of the rape of a woman outside of
  a bomb shelter and heard of other allegations of rape that could not yet be verified.
  If you want to read more try the actual report

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