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Israeli Leaders Demand Probe of IDF Rape Video—To Find Out Who Leaked It
"This is what Israelis rioted to protect, what the Knesset debated—the right to rape Palestinians," said one critic.
Aug 07, 2024
While human rights groups called for an investigation of a leaked recording apparently showing Israel Defense Forces reservists gang-raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military base and detention center, Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday also furiously demanded a probe of the video—not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked it.
Smotrich took to social media Wednesday to call for "an immediate criminal investigation to locate the leakers of the trending video that was intended to harm the reservists and that caused tremendous damage to Israel in the world, and to exhaust the full severity of the law against them."
Israeli media on Tuesday aired footage in which Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reservists are seen attacking a Palestinian man at Sde Teiman while trying to hide their actions with shields.
According to Israeli media reports, the victim was hospitalized with a severe anal injury, ruptured bowel, broken ribs, and lung damage.
Nine alleged assailants—who include members of Force 100, the military unit tasked with guarding Sde Teiman prisoners—were arrested last week in connection with the attack. A mob of far-right Israelis including senior government officials subsequently stormed two military bases in an attempt to free the suspects.
While many Israelis condemned the alleged rape, others rallied around the accused reservists. Smotrich described them as "heroic warriors." National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called them "our best heroes."
Far-right Israeli lawmaker Zvi Sukkot—who took part in last week's riot—joined Smotrich in demanding an investigation of the video leak.
"Leaking and disclosure of investigative materials is a criminal offense that harms the proper legal process, the rule of law, public trust, and the principle of justice," he said Wednesday.
Israeli media reported Wednesday that two of the accused reservists lied on polygraph tests when asked if they had sodomized the prisoner.
Numerous Israelis continued to express support for the accused rapists. Israel Today political reporter Yehuda Schlesinger said Wednesday on a popular morning show that "I don't give a rat's ass what they do to Hamas man."
"The only thing that is a problem for me here is that it's not a regulated policy of the state to abuse the detainees, because, first of all, they deserve it, and it's great revenge... maybe it will serve us a little more a a deterrent..."
Genocidal psycho Yehuda Schlesinger,… https://t.co/hWpsD4VU3q pic.twitter.com/YH6G0kSvs3
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) August 7, 2024
"First of all, they deserve it," Schlesinger said of the abuse at Sde Teiman and other Israeli military prisons. "It's great revenge that we need to give them."
"It's just a shame that we don't do it in an institutionalized way, as part of regulations for torture of prisoners," he added, "because then the next guys who think about doing another October 7 will say, 'Do you see what they're doing to [us] in Israel?'"
Etan Nechin, the New York correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, accused the media of being the "main culprit" that "has normalized the most extreme voices, letting genocidal brutes, racists, and messianic zealots into Israeli's TV sets."
Some American media critics drew attention to the scant coverage of abuse at Sde Teiman in the U.S. corporate media.
"U.S. taxpayers continue to support this military and its torture camps," Palestinian American author and political analyst Yousef Munayyer wrote on social media. "How is this not front-page news?"
In the United States—which supports Israel's war on Gaza with billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover—State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a Wednesday press conference that "there ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee. Period."
"It is appropriate that the IDF in this case, has announced an investigation, has arrested a number of people who are alleged to have been involved, and I won't speak to the outcome of that investigation, but it ought to proceed swiftly," Miller added.
Critics noted the IDF's chronic failures to credibly investigate its alleged crimes. The Israeli rights group Yesh Din said in late 2022 that less than 1% of Israeli soldiers accused of harming Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza were indicted over the previous five years.
The Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday took up a petition by rights groups seeking to close Sde Teiman, where widespread—and sometimes deadly—torture has been reported. Last month, Israel's High Court issued a conditional order seeking to shut down the prison in response to the flood of reports of torture there.
Former prisoners including children and Israeli whistleblowers at Sde Teiman—often called "Israel's Guantánamo Bay"—have described rampant torture and abuse at the facility, which is used to imprison Palestinians captured in the Gaza Strip. According to their testimonies, prisoners have been raped, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, burned with cigarettes, severely beaten, starved, and subjected to 24-hour shackling sometimes leading to amputations.
The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem
said this week that at least 60 Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since October.
More than 1,100 Israelis and others died during the Hamas-led attack on October 7, during which more than 240 other people were kidnapped. Israel's response—which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case—has left more than 142,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, according to local and international officials.
Smotrich suggested earlier this week that it is "moral and justified" to starve 2 million Palestinians to death. So far, at least dozens, mostly children, have died from malnutrition, dehydration, and lack of medical care in Gaza amid Israel's crippling assault and siege.
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Far-Right Israeli Ministers Lead Settler March to Illegal West Bank Outpost
"The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding. Israeli settlers march on stolen land... and yet, somehow, they are the victims in their own narrative," said one Palestine advocate.
Apr 11, 2023
In what Palestine defenders and even one mainstream U.S. Jewish group called a perilous provocation, leaders of Israel's far-right government accompanied thousands of settlers shielded by a heavy military presence on a Monday march to an illegal colony in the occupied West Bank.
Senior officials in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right Cabinet—including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—and numerous right-wing lawmakers joined a crowd of as many as 20,000 pro-apartheid demonstrators who marched to Evyatar in a bid to legitimize the outpost,The Times of Israelreports.
According to Haaretz, 22 Palestinians including residents of the nearby town of Beita were wounded when Israeli occupation forces fired on them with less-lethal weapons including rubber-tipped steel bullets during and after the march. More than 100 people including journalists also suffered from inhaling gas used by Israeli forces to disperse counter-demonstrators. At least two journalists were hospitalized as a result of their injuries.
Meanwhile, marchers brought inflatable bouncy houses and other amusements to entertain children during the demonstration.
\u201cThousands of Israeli settlers marched through the northern West Bank today towards the Palestinian village of Beita flanked by Israeli regime forces. \n\nAmong them were dozens of Israeli regime ministers & lawmakers. \n\nMeanwhile Palestinians were tear gassed & their roads closed.\u201d— Dr. Yara Hawari \u062f. \u064a\u0627\u0631\u0627 \u0647\u0648\u0627\u0631\u064a (@Dr. Yara Hawari \u062f. \u064a\u0627\u0631\u0627 \u0647\u0648\u0627\u0631\u064a) 1681137061
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the march as "a dangerous escalation and provocation of the Palestinian people and an extension of the incitement calls of the Israeli right and the fascist right to deepen settlement at the expense of land."
Yumna Patel, Palestine news director at Mondoweiss, said on Twitter: "The cognitive dissonance is truly astounding. Israeli settlers march on stolen land, in a settler colony that's given them the land to steal and colonize, alongside an army whose singular goal is to protect them. And yet, somehow, they are the victims in their own narrative."
The liberal U.S. Jewish group J Street also condemned the march, tweeting that "this is an incendiary and deeply dangerous act by some of the most senior ministers in the Israeli government."
"Their vision is clear: annexation, endless conflict, and chaos," the group added.
\u201cFar-right Israeli ministers join settler march for illegal Evyatar outpost\n\nIsraeli settlers marched near Nablus in the occupied West Bank to demand the re-establishment and legalisation of the evacuated illegal outpost of Evyatar (Avitar) near the Palestinian town of Beita\u201d— Middle East Monitor (@Middle East Monitor) 1681207188
However, Ben-Gvir—who is a settler—asserted that "we are here, and we are marching toward the future... I hope the entire state of Israel understands this."
Smotrich told Haaretz while marching that "God willing, we'll bring here another half-million Jews on top the half-million that are already here."
United Nations experts say the true number of Israeli settlers colonizing the West Bank and East Jerusalem is closer to 700,000.
Evyatar, an exclusively Jewish community first established in 2013, is built on stolen Palestinian land on Mount Sabih in Beita, south of Nablus. The settlement is illegal under both international and Israeli law and has been repeatedly destroyed by Israeli authorities.
Since 1967, at least 77 Beita residents have been killed by Israeli forces, many of them during protests, according to Patel.
\u201cThe Palestinians in Beit have been protesting against the Evyatar outpost since 2021. At least 7 people, including 2 children, from the town have been killed over the course of the protests. We covered Beita's fight against the outpost back in 2021 https://t.co/Nw4aLS7LzD\u201d— Yumna (@Yumna) 1681231625
The last mass eviction of Evyatar took place in June 2021. However, while the Israeli military says the outpost is "flagrantly illegal," scores of homes have been built there with soldiers' help and the government has provided the community with electricity, water, and roads.
On February 27—the day after settlers' deadly rampage through the Palestinian town of Huwara—Ben-Gvir, who leads the Jewish Power party, defiantly organized a rally in Evyatar, where he called for the assassination of "terrorists" who resist Israeli expansion.
Netanyahu's government is seeking to "legalize" Evyatar as it did for nine other settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem earlier this year.
When asked by Haaretz why Evyatar has not yet been legalized, Zvi Sukkot, an Israeli lawmaker representing the Religious Zionism party, said that "legalizing such an outpost takes time."
"We're not afraid of America," he added. The Biden administration says it opposes settlement expansion, even while lavishing Israel with billions of dollars in annual military aid and diplomatic cover.
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