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international solidarity movement
'Abu Ghraib 2.0': IDF Torture Videos Spark Renewed Calls to End US Military Aid to Israel
"It's no surprise... that the same government that tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib is funding the same tactics on Palestinians," said Jewish Voice for Peace.
Oct 31, 2023
Human rights defenders on Tuesday renewed calls for the U.S. government to end American complicity in Israel's "horrific war crimes" after the publication of videos purportedly recorded and shared by Israeli soldiers showing the torture and dehumanization of Palestinian men, some of them naked, in the illegally occupied West Bank.
U.S.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) were among the groups that condemned the videos, which show armed and uniformed Israeli troops and possibly settlers beating, kicking, stomping, and dragging bound, blindfolded, and naked Palestinian men, forcing them to shout "long live Israel," and draping them in the Israeli flag.
"The footage of Israeli soldiers torturing Palestinian men in the West Bank is horrific," JVP
said on social media. "The Israeli military has brutally abused Palestinian prisoners for decades. As the Israeli military wages a genocidal war in Gaza, its soldiers are no longer hiding this abuse from the public."
"Torture and humiliation [are] a tool of all repressive regimes to punish and destroy the spirit [of] anyone who challenges their oppression," the group continued. "It's no surprise then, that the same government that tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib is funding the same tactics on Palestinians. This is disgusting."
JVP added: "CEASE-FIRE NOW! END U.S. MILITARY FUNDING TO ISRAEL NOW!"
The U.S. gives Israel around $4 billion in annual military aid. Last week, President Joe Biden
asked Congress to authorize an additional $14 billion in assistance for Israel as it ramps up its war on Gaza in the wake of this month's Hamas-led surprise attacks that killed more than 1,400 Israelis and others, with the death toll since rising to over 1,500, according to state broadcaster Kan. Around 200 Israelis and others were taken hostage by Gaza-based militants.
CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad said in a
statement that "enough is enough. President Biden must end our nation's complicity in [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly genocidal campaign of violence against Palestinian civilians in both Gaza and the West Bank."
"Every new massacre that the Israeli government commits further stains our nation's reputation and refutes the claim that our nation supports human rights," Awad added. "If our leaders truly do view Palestinians as human beings worthy of life and freedom, we must stop this madness."
Awad's comments came on the same day that Israeli bombardment of the Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza's largest,
killed and wounded at least scores and possibly hundreds of Palestinians.
The Gaza Health Ministry
said Tuesday that 8,525 people, including 2,187 women and 3,542 children, have been killed, and over 21,000 others wounded, by Israeli forces since they began bombarding Gaza on October 7.
At least 124 Palestinians have also been killed and over 2,000 injured in attacks by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since then, a situation U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called "totally unacceptable."
"Israel must take measures to protect Palestinians from such attacks and to hold accountable any settlers who carry out attacks, as well as any members of the Israeli Defense Forces (sic) who stand by or fail to intervene when these attacks occur," Sullivan said on Sunday.
The newly published torture videos follow reports earlier this month of Israeli soldiers and settlers torturing a group of Palestinian men in the central West Bank village of Wadi al-Seeq on October 12. According to the victims, they were beaten, stripped, urinated on, and sexually assaulted.
"All the monstrous, inhumane, or immoral means of interrogation you could think of were used against us. You would have thought we were at Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib," one of the men, 46-year-old Mohammad Matar (known as Abu Hassan), told+972 Magazine, referring to the notorious U.S. military prisons in Cuba and Iraq, two of the numerous American facilities were detainees were tortured—sometimes to death.
"They had our hands tied behind our backs, our eyes covered, our faces in the ground," Abu Hassan said. "They stepped on our heads and said: t'Eat! Eat the sheep shit!"
"They jumped on our backs intending to paralyze us, to break the spinal cord," he added. "They also tried to hit us on our genitals to mutilate us, 30 to 40 times. They kept taking turns to hit us."
An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson told +972 Magazine that "the manner in which the arrest was carried out and the conduct of the forces in the field was contrary to what was expected of soldiers and commanders in the IDF."
"After the initial investigation, a decision was made to dismiss the commander of the unit that carried out the arrest," the spokesperson added. "In the circumstances of the matter and in view of the seriousness of the suspicions, it was decided to open an investigation by the military police."
On Monday, the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) sounded the alarm on what it called "colonial violence and ethnic cleansing" in Masafer Yatta, a collection of 19 hamlets in the southern West Bank where the Israeli government in 2022 ordered the expulsion of 2,000 Palestinians to make way for an Israeli military training facility.
According to ISM:
Settler militias are terrorizing Palestinians by invading their villages during pogroms, armed with assault rifles, often wearing Israeli army uniforms and accompanied by Israeli soldiers. Palestinians and ISM activists have reported and documented cases of settlers beating up Palestinian residents, including women, children, and the elderly; settlers and soldiers shooting towards Palestinian houses... destroying water pumps and electric grids, uprooting trees, and taking up Palestinian fields, planting Israeli flags on Palestinian land and houses, and even forcing Palestinians to sing pro-Israel chants and to wave an Israeli flag while holding them at gunpoint and filming them.
ISM also said that on Sunday, "settlers and soldiers invaded the village of Susyia and threatened residents that if they don't leave within 24 hours, they will be back and start killing Palestinians in the village."
"A similar threat to residents of the village of Khirbet Zanuta has already resulted in the community leaving the land in order to save their families," the group added.
The Times of Israel reported Tuesday that Israeli settlers torched a home in the Masafer Yatta village of Khirbet Asfi al-Tahta.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has reported the ethnic cleansing of at least scores of Palestinian families from their homes and farms in Area C, the Israel-designated West Bank occupation zone completely administered by Israel.
"While all eyes are on Gaza... the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank could intensify further," Israeli international law and human rights professor Neve Gordon wrote for the London Review of Books blog Monday, "with Israeli forces pushing Palestinians out of their homes and possibly across international borders."
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Palestinian Toddler Muhammad Tamimi Dies Days After Israeli Forces Shot Him in Head
"What accountability will there be for the Israeli soldier(s) who opened fire into a Palestinian community and shot a two-year-old in the head?" asked one journalist. "The track record isn't promising."
Jun 05, 2023
A two-and-a-half-year-old Palestinian boy shot in the head last week by Israeli forces—who initially denied shooting the toddler—succumbed to his wounds on Monday.
Muhammad Tamimi and his father, Haytham Tamimi, were in their parked car outside their home in Nabi Saleh village near Ramallah in the illegally occupied West Bank of Palestine last Thursday when they came under fire from Israeli troops.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that a preliminary investigation found that two Palestinian resistance fighters fired on the illegal Israeli settlement of Halamish—located in the southwestern Samarian Hills north of Ramallah—around 7:30 pm and that IDF troops stationed nearby returned fire, hitting Muhammad Tamimi in the head and his father in the chest.
\u201cAs news was breaking of the father and son having been shot, a claim that Palestinian gunmen were to blame - rather than Israeli soldiers - was quickly shared by army sources, Israeli journalists, & other social media accounts.\u201d— Ben White (@Ben White) 1685781244
Israeli officials initially claimed the Tamimis were shot by "terrorists" before admitting the pair was likely hit by mistake, expressing "regret" over the incident, and stating that the shootings were "being investigated in depth," according toThe Times of Israel.
"The question is," said British journalist and Palestinian rights advocate Ben White, "what accountability will there be for the Israeli soldier(s) who opened fire into a Palestinian community and shot a two-year-old in the head? The track record isn't promising."
About half an hour after the father and son were shot, an IDF jeep "stormed the village and started firing live bullets directly at the houses," according to the Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement (ISM).
ISM said 17-year-old Wissam Tamimi, who was standing on the roof of his family's home, was struck in the head with a sponge-tipped round and suffered a fractured skull.
\u201cPhotojournalist Bilal Tamimi was directly shot at by Israeli forces during an incursion in Nabi Saleh last night, despite identifying himself as a journalist to the soldiers.\n\nThis happened following the shooting of a 2 year old toddler and his father by Israeli soldiers.\u201d— Jalal (@Jalal) 1685694273
ISM continued:
After that, three snipers positioned themselves on the roof of one of the shops opposite the citizens' homes and fired live bullets and sponge bombs at anyone who moved, whether inside the houses or on the rooftops. The journalist and volunteer at B'Tselem, Bilal Tamimi, who was wearing a press uniform, helmet, and shield, was wounded after a soldier fired a sponge bomb directly and from a close range which broke his wrist and required surgery for a platinum implant. The house of journalist Bilal Tamimi continued to be targeted with live bullets, gas canisters, and sponge bombs, as a result of which his mother, who had kidney failure, suffocated.
Palestinian medics took Haytham Tamimi to a hospital in Ramallah, while an Israeli military helicopter rushed the critically injured toddler to Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel. The child was placed on life support until he was pronounced dead on Monday morning.
\u201cPalestinians bid farewell to the child Mohammed Tamimi (2) who died today after Isr*eli forces shot him in the head with live ammunition with his father on June 1 in Nabi Saleh, northwest of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. #FreePalestine\u201d— Sarah Hassan (@Sarah Hassan) 1685984917
On Friday, Israeli occupation forces returned to Nabi Saleh and forced many of the village's residents out of their homes, not allowing them to return until they withdrew at dawn on Saturday. At approximately 4:30 pm, Israeli troops shot Noura Tamimi in the stomach with a sponge-tipped round, causing severe convulsions that required hospitalization. Kafa Tamimi, who is seven months pregnant, choked on tear gas after Israeli troops fired a canister of the chemical agent through her window.
On Saturday night, occupation forces invaded the village yet again, storming homes, beating residents, and terrorizing the community.
"The incitement for this attack stems from the settlers' repeated attempts to intimidate the villagers, with the most recent incident occurring just last week," resident Manal Tamimi told ISM, referring to Jewish residents of the apartheid colony of Halamish, also known as Neve Tzuf.
"In light of these distressing events, we urgently call upon the international community to ensure the protection of this small village, with a population not exceeding 650 people," Tamimi added. "It is imperative that international humanitarian law and international treaties are upheld, and immediate action is taken to halt the repeated attacks by both the occupation forces and settlers. Over the past decade alone, these aggressions have tragically resulted in the martyrdom of five young individuals from the village."
For years, Nabi Saleh was the site of weekly Friday demonstrations against Israeli settler colonization, land theft, and seizure of the village's spring.
This year alone, around 150 Palestinians—both resistance fighters and civilians—have been killed by Israeli occupation forces and settlers. This figure includes 28 children. Palestinian militants, meanwhile, have killed about 20 Israelis so far this year.
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Rachel Corrie 'Lives On in All of Us,' Say Palestinians 20 Years After IDF Killed Activist
One Palestinian journalist said the slain American activist "became a worldwide symbol of freedom and a source of inspiration for everyone who dreams of a world of justice and peace."
Mar 16, 2023
Palestinian rights activists on Thursday remembered the life and legacy of Rachel Corrie, the American human rights defender who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer on March 16, 2003 while trying to shield a Palestinian home from demolition in occupied Gaza.
"Rachel was 23 when she was killed. She could have satisfied her conscience by protesting against global injustice in a demonstration in America or by calling for a boycott of the aggressors," Palestinian journalist and activist Ahmed Abu Artema—who is from Rafah, where Corrie was killed—wrote for Mondoweiss.
"But her high sense of morality was not satisfied with these symbolic gestures," he added. "Her conscience would not rest without complete involvement, without standing side-by-side with us. That's why she came to Palestine."
Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician, scholar, and activist, called Corrie "an icon of resistance, freedom, and self-sacrifice."
"Palestine is forever grateful," she added. "Always in our hearts. Rest in love and peace."
Corrie, who hailed from Olympia, Washington, was a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led group resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestine through nonviolent direct action.
"No amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing, and word-of-mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here," Corrie wrote to family and friends on February 7, 2003, adding that she had "very few words to describe" what she saw in Gaza.
"An 8-year-old child was shot and killed by an Israeli tank two days before I got here," she said.
"I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive," Corrie told a reporter two days before she was killed.
On the afternoon of March 16, Corrie received an urgent call from ISM activists telling her to rush to the home of Samir Nasrallah, a pharmacist who lived with his wife and three children near the Egyptian border in Rafah. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops were in the process of destroying homes in the area and ISM activists feared the Nasrallah's residence was next, as it was one of the few houses left standing in the area.
Corrie hurried to the home, clad in a fluorescent orange jacket and carrying a megaphone. As the IDF's American-made Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer approached Nasrallah's home, Corrie stood in its path and was fatally injured. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she died.
Corrie was not the last ISM activist to be killed or seriously wounded by Israeli forces. A month after her death, 21-year-old British student Tom Hurndall was shot in the head by an IDF sniper as he attempted to rescue Palestinian children from an Israeli tank that was firing in their direction. The shooting left Hurndall in a coma; he died nine months later in a London hospital.
IDF officials denied intentionally killing Corrie, despite court testimony from army officers that Corrie and other activists were legitimate military targets who were "doomed to death" for resisting Israeli occupation forces.
An IDF investigation concluded that Corrie had not been crushed to death by the bulldozer, despite an Israeli autopsy that concluded her death was caused by "pressure on the chest with fractures of the ribs and vertebrae of the dorsal spinal column and scapulas, and tear wounds in the right lung."
The IDF called Corrie's death a "regrettable accident" while blaming the ISM activists for their own harm because by "placing themselves in a combat zone."
Efforts in the United States by Corrie's family, activist groups, and U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) to achieve accountability and justice for Corrie bore no fruit.
While Corrie once wrote that she felt protected by "the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed U.S. citizen," there were no such difficulties, just as there were no repercussions after Israeli warplanes killed 34 American sailors and wounded 173 others during a 1967 attack on the USS Liberty—an attack numerous top U.S. officials believe was deliberate.
In 2012, an Israeli court ruled against Corrie's parents, who had sued the IDF, with the judge claiming the activist's death was the "result of an accident she brought upon herself."
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter condemned the ruling as a confirmation of the "climate of impunity which facilitates Israeli human rights violations."
"Rachel's case was cast aside by Israel's colonial courts. But Rachel won," Abu Artema wrote Thursday. "She became a worldwide symbol of freedom and a source of inspiration for everyone who dreams of a world of justice and peace."
"Israel may have killed her," he added, "but Rachel Corrie lives on in all of us."
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