'A Revolting Moral Outrage': Israeli Soldiers Reportedly Torture Gaza Toddler

Israeli soldiers in Gaza allegedly tortured an 18-month-old Palestinian toddler in an effort to force a confession from his father, local and international media outlets reported Monday.

According to Al Jazeera, Karim Abu Nassar was with his father, Osama Abu Nassar, near the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza on Saturday when they came under Israel Defense Forces fire. Eyewitnesses told Palestine TV that IDF troops ordered the man to leave the child on the ground and advance to a nearby checkpoint, where he was stripped naked and searched.

Witnesses said IDF soldiers then tortured Karim in front of his father to pressure him to confess to something. Journalist Osama Al-Kahlout interviewed the child's mother, who said the toddler suffered a cigarette burn to one leg and a nail puncture to the other. Al-Kahlout's video shows wounds on the child's legs—injuries reportedly confirmed by an unspecified medical authority.

Karim was reportedly released to relatives via the International Committee of the Red Cross after 10 hours of detention. The ICRC has not issued a statement regarding the matter and rarely does so absent an investigation.

The Palestine Chronicle reported that Osama Abu Nassar remains in custody, in a system rife with torture—sometimes deadly—and other abuse.

The IDF has not commented on the alleged incident.

In the United States, the story is being amplified by prominent figures including Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), which issued a statement calling the accusations "revolting."

“Israel’s use of a nail and cigarette burns to torture a 1-year-old child and force a confession from his father is a revolting moral outrage that demands immediate action from Congress," the group said. "No child, anywhere in the world, should be subjected to such cruelty, especially with American taxpayer dollars. These actions constitute grave violations of international law and basic human decency."

“Our nation must end its complicity in these crimes," CAIR added. "Congress has a responsibility to ensure that American taxpayer dollars are not used to support the torture or slaughter of more children. Every lawmaker with a conscience must vote to end military aid for the out-of-control Israeli regime.”

The US has given Israel hundreds of billions of inflation-adjusted dollars in aid to Israel since the country was established in 1948, including more than $20 billion since October 2023.

A new report published by UN Palestine expert Francesca Albanese examines the "systematic use by Israel of torture against Palestinians," finding "practices that meet the threshold for genocide" under the Genocide Convention—the basis of the ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case brought by South Africa.

A summary of the report states:

Torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on men, women, and children—both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation, and the destruction of all means of life to inflict long-term collective pain and suffering. A continuous, territorially pervasive regime of psychological terror is being imposed, designed to break bodies, deprive a people of their dignity, and force them from their land. This is not incidental violence. It is the architecture of settler-colonialism, built on a foundation of dehumanization and maintained by a policy of cruelty and collective torture.

Palestinian victims—including minors—and witnesses, as well as Israeli soldiers, veterans, and medical professionals have described widespread torture and other abuses including rape and sexual assault by male and female soldiers, electrocution, mauling by dogs, beatings, denial of food and water, sleep deprivation, stress positions, and exposure to loud music and temperature extremes.

At least scores of Palestinian detainees have died or been killed in Israeli custody, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton. Many bodies of former Palestinian prisoners returned by Israel have shown signs of torture, execution, and mutilation.

Since the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded at least 250,000 Palestinians, including more than 65,000 children. Israeli troops have been accused by Palestinians, Western medical volunteers, and their own colleagues of deliberately targeting children with sniper fire and executing them along with their adult relatives during massacres.

In addition to facing the ICJ genocide case, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, are fugitives from the International Criminal Court, where they are wanted for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.