Ms. Soussana, 40, is the first Israeli to speak publicly about being sexually assaulted during captivity after the Hamas-led raid on southern Israel. In her interviews with The Times, conducted mostly in English, she provided extensive details of sexual and other violence she suffered during a 55-day ordeal.
Ms. Soussana’s personal account of her experience in captivity is consistent with what she told two doctors and a social worker less than 24 hours after she was freed on Nov. 30. Their reports about her account state the nature of the sexual act; The Times agreed not to disclose the specifics.
. . .
For months, Hamas and its supporters have denied that its members sexually abused people in captivity or during the Oct. 7 terrorist attack. This month, a United Nations report said that there was “clear and convincing information” that some hostages had suffered sexual violence and there were “reasonable grounds” to believe sexual violence occurred during the raid, while acknowledging the “challenges and limitations” of examining the issue.
Well. This is pretty significant. I would say it’s rather damning evidence that considerably raises the bar to doubt these claims.
There’s a lot I could say here. Hamas is a bunch reprehensible fucks. It’s disappointing that we needed concrete evidence because of how untrustworthy the IDF is. But I think the most salient and important point here is that there is no “good guy” or “right side” among the war combatants. It’s awful people fighting awful people. Hamas and the IDF both deserve nothing but contempt and scorn, and both should be dismantled for their crimes against humanity.
I’ve tried to be very precise with my wording because none of what I just said applies to the Palestinian nor Israeli people. The civilians and innocent people are caught between two legions of hell and are the ones paying the price. The kidnapped and tortured Israelis, the Palestinian people – both of them are suffering at the hands of both Hamas and the Israeli government.
Neither of them care about the civilians. They use them as lambs for sacrifice and control the flow of information to manufacture hate and support for the war. It’s become readily apparent that the IDF and Hamas just want to keep fighting, and they’re manipulating the civilians to support them. If both peoples were getting the true, unfiltered information – sights of dying Palestinian children, demolished buildings, accounts of Israeli hostages – I think they’d be appalled at what “their side” is doing.
I really hope the majority would be appalled, because there can’t be any peace until they recognize their shared suffering and humanity. And to be clear, the majority of suffering is clearly inflicted on the Palestinians.
Edit: I’m not angry at the downvotes but damn am I disappointed. You’d think “fuck the people genociding others and fuck the people taking hostages” would be an uncontroversial position, but here we are.
Reason this is controversial is because hamas is literally the same thing as IDF, bibi funded it and that much genocide also radicalized a shit ton of people, hamas is an asset of Israel, they shouldn’t be equated to palestine in anyway
This exact story will now be used to justify all the war crimes Israel has been doing, when hamas does something, Israel should be the one held accountable, not Palestine, there are no ‘two sides’, its only one side continuously killing the innocent
No disagreement here really. This doesn’t justify Israel’s war crimes at all. Whether Hamas is effectively the same as the IDF or not, they’re a bunch of radicalized shitheads who do not in any way represent the Palestinians. They’re closer to ruling dictators than they are champions of the people.
You are right, but when you make the both sides bad argument, the pro genocide have an excuse ‘Oh hamas bad as well’ but the thing is the very reason hamas exists is because of Israel, and then according to me alteast Israel should be held equally accountable
Something I’ve recently realized is that I can and should do more to call out the genocide proponents. I generally don’t engage with them because there’s no intelligent discussion to be had there, and there’s a lot more interesting and nuanced things to talk about with people who agree this is a genocide that needs to stop.
But, that does give the illusion that the genocide proponents aren’t being challenged, and that instead of harshly criticizing Israel I’m just saying “both sides bad”. That’s something I’m going to try and improve on, because I need to make it crystal clear that Hamas’ actions are not even remotely an excuse for the IDF to be genocidal.
Well out of all takes, this certainly is one
Hamas is not the same as israel. The difference in civilian and especially child casualties says enough.
Israel is far far worse than Hamas.
I don’t mean same in that sense, same as in that they are literally the same thing, kinda like different companies operating under one larger one (Netanyahu)
Netanyahu funded them because he considered them convenient at the time. Just like how America funded the Taliban and other groups that aligned with their interests.
And as usual with these groups, their funder loses control over them when they grow to big and it backfires.
it backfires
Highly doubt that, they might not have control anymore but Hamas certainly did made the job a lot easier for netanyahu
Edit: My analogy was a bit dumb tho, but that doesn’t change the fact that hamas is an asset to Israel, and shouldn’t be lumped with Palestinians or be used make an argument that ‘both sides are bad’, there is only one side bulldozing the other
Yeah what I was trying to say is that there’s effectively three sides. Hamas, IDF, and the civilians. The first two are bad, but not the third, even though the third is the one suffering, mostly in Palestine.
Currently israel is losing all global rep. Their facade of the moral army has fallen and they are seen for the Genocidal maniacs they are. Not a massively successful land grab so far.
The downfall is always arrogance. They boast groups that fight their enemies like Hamas to divide and conquer. But then the Hamas grows so big that they beat all other groups. And then they start fighting israel.
Well the problem is one is the occupier and the one is the occupied. And people talk as if Hamas is the Palestinians problem and that it all started October 7th.
Treat people and respect them as humans, don’t put them in open-air prisons, and divide people into an apartheid system, then maybe you won’t have any terrorist attacks and/or rapes.
Hamas is not the same thing as Palestinians. The majority of Palestinians want peace and aren’t kidnapping and torturing Israelis.
I completely agree that the Palestinians are being appallingly treated and experiencing apartheid. But they haven’t turned to violence. Hamas would like to claim they’re freedom fighters, but they stockpile supplies for themselves and steal charity meant for the people. They aren’t the good guys here. The good guys are the ones being bombed and massacred.
Sounds like victim blaming
i noticed most lemmey users here exhibit the same kind of behaviour before the exodus from reddit.
very left leaning and wouldn’t hesitate to employ cancel culture if facts don’t fit their narratives.
at least there are sane usera like yourself have clearly drawn the line that condemning hamas doesn’t equate condemning the palestinians.
evidence have shown,if you condemn hamas,somehow or rather that’s Israel’s fault and anyone who does it is dehumanising palestinans,never mind the fact that there were palestinians celebrating the death of innocents and giving out sweets to children.
never mind the fact that there were palestinians celebrating the death of innocents and giving out sweets to children.
This is incorrect. Hamas told people that a prison was liberated, and that’s why they were celebrating. They had no idea that Hamas had killed innocent people like that.
Think about it – where does information in Gaza come from? A lot of it is coming from Hamas itself. They’re going to make themselves look good and lie about what’s actually going on.
this is the first i am hearing if this.
mind sharing where you got that info from??
Yep, here you go.
It’s a really good article in general, it does a great job of highlighting the disconnect in communication and how Israel and Hamas are manipulating the news.
thank you!
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Removed, advocating violence.
Lol
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Do you think civilian casualties, looting, and rape conducted by the Allies is excusable?
There is very clearly a worse side. The IDF is unequivocally worse and committing genocide. They have caused several degrees of magnitude more people to suffer. That does not mean however that Hamas hasn’t caused people to suffer either. Condemning all violent acts doesn’t mean we’re saying both sides are the same. You can acknowledge fault in two groups simultaneously, and pursue and peace and justice for both of their victims.
“And now you can’t call us out for totally fucking up with that other article.”
Just joined Lemmy, holy shit this instance is full of nazis and genocide apologists what the fuck, tell me how many women do you think the IDF have raped over the last 75 years? Hell even just since oct 7?
It started off OK but now its been infiltrated by the IDF propagandists
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After being released along with 105 other hostages during a cease-fire in late November, Ms. Soussana spoke only in vague terms publicly about her treatment in the Gaza Strip, wary of recounting such a traumatic experience.
Hours after her release, Ms. Soussana spoke with a senior Israeli gynecologist, Dr. Julia Barda, and a social worker, Valeria Tsekhovsky, about the sexual assault, the two women said in separate interviews with The Times.
The small kibbutz stands roughly 1.5 miles from Gaza, and it was one of more than 20 Israeli villages, towns and army bases overrun that day by thousands who surged across the Gazan border shortly after dawn.
In Kfar Azza, Ms. Soussana said, she rarely involved herself in village life and was not part of the local WhatsApp groups, which left her unaware of the extent of the attack on the kibbutz.
Finally, the two women were driven to Palestine Square, a major plaza at the heart of Gaza City, where a raucous crowd waited to see them handed over to the Red Cross.
Social media video showed that Hamas struggled to control the onlookers, who surrounded the car, pressed up against its windows and at one point began to rock the vehicle, Ms. Soussana said.
The original article contains 3,949 words, the summary contains 207 words. Saved 95%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Now, write an individual article for each child starved to death or bombed by Israel. I can’t muster the energy to care about a single rape in the middle of a genocide.
We have rape kits in Texas that have gone untested for over a decade. If rape was important to the people enacting justice, we have a long list to get through before we can start worrying about rapes in warzones.
But justice isn’t the intent behind articles like this. They want to justify the genocide with individual crimes.
I don’t agree with this comment. Both of those acts are fucking awful. Anyone to be raped must be an awful experience and extremely traumatic. I understand that some who is raped are not dead, but still a vile act.
You should read that comment again. They aren’t arguing that rape is not a vile act. They are saying that the people who are using this woman’s horrifying experience as propaganda to justify murdering tens of thousands of people don’t actually care about her suffering, they only care about pushing their agenda of Arab extermination. It is literally what the Nazis in Germany did to the Jews 80 years ago.
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If you truly believed this, you would be offended by the political use of rape to justify the genocide of children.
You don’t want to engage what my comment actually said, the fact that a single rape in the face of genocide does not an article make.
My comment was about the focus on this crime as an individual act justifying genocide and you want to refocus back to the singular act while not really addressing the editorializing of NYT.
You are playing the game the genocidal people want you to play instead of engaging this propoganda meaningfully.
That’s bullshit. There are many news articles literally every single day about the civilians killed in Gaza. Meanwhile, on Lemmy, you have people still denying that Hamas sexually tortured women captured on October 7. Sorry it doesn’t fit your narrative.
In my opinion, there is a huge difference between civilian collateral damage during a military operation and the use of rape as a weapon of war. We xan argue about how much force Israel is using and whether X amount of collateral damage is acceptable. But gratuitously raping people has no legitimate purpose, military or otherwise. It serves to sow terror and incite retaliation, which is why Hamas did it.
Neither rape nor civilian murder, or ‘collateral damage’ as you put it, is tolerable. But minimising the actual deaths and lifelong physical casualties, rather than just rape, of hundreds of people to just ‘collateral damage’ as though you would react in the exact same way if Hamas was bombing Israeli hospitals and schools, is [insert disparaging word here].
Unintended casualties is an unavoidable side effect of urban combat. Use your brain.
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Roof knocking, phone calls to the building, and leaflets. Did you know that all three of these warning operations are conducted before the IDF drop a bomb? It’s the highest standard in history. If you think these are intended casualties you’re clearly brainwashed.
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Yes, it is absolutely the highest standard of military forewarning and you’ve failed to provide anything that confirms otherwise (and you will never be able to). No amount of head-empty baby rage is going to change reality.
Downvote me, hate me, and quietly move on. The language of those that can’t face the cognitive dissonance of a contradictory, inarguable fact.
We call this, projection.
You can’t come to terms with the hate and slaughter you support, so you project your guilt to others.
I’m not hearing a counterpoint.
You don’t counter coping techniques. It’s not a logical stance and will not be countered by logic.
My point is that bombing a building that you believe contains soldiers sometimes also causes civilian deaths. We can debate whether sufficient care was taken, but the justification is that the army believes that enemy soldiers were present. Same with cutting off aid shipments. We can debate whether Israel has gone too far in restricting humanitarian aid, but the justification is that Israel doesn’t want supplies diverted for use by Hamas. What exactly is the justification for raping people?
Starving children is not a military operation.
You’re full of shit.
Nope. As I said in my other comment, cutting off aid to Gaza in order to starve out the militants hiding in the civilian population is a military operation that is at least plausibly justifiable. And I acknowledge the argument that Israel has taken it too far.
But what is your justification for raping people? What sort of military operation is that, exactly?
By your twisted and fucked up logic, raping people is a justifiable military operation: you rape enough people some of them ought to be military personnel and it causes irreparable harm that may dissuade them to continue fighting.
Rape, civilian casualties, killing children….all of them are unacceptable. Now fuck off you nazi piece of shit.
You really went there? Ouch. Get help.
Man, ghouls will go to any extent to justify starving children and/or war crimes when the right people are doing it.
It is not justifiable at all! You don’t bomb a town because there’s a couple terrorists living there! Collective punishment is absolutely wrong.
Starving people to out militants is unconscionable. And, doesn’t exactly work either. Hamas has stockpiled supplies. The civilians haven’t. And if you kill all the civilians to find the militants, you’ve become just as much of a monster as the militants, if not even worse.
I guess the civilians could out the militants themselves, no? Then the IDF could take out the militants with fewer civilian casualties.
It’s easy to criticize from your armchair, but what is your solution to the ancient problem of militants who commit heinous acts and then hide among the civilian population? If you don’t have a realistic alternative, then complaining about civilian casualties is just virtue signaling. Lots of people on here have obviously never had to make a hard call to accomplish a mission. The IDF is using conventional military and siege tactics, while Hamas is using human shields and terrorist tactics. Civilians lose either way. That’s war. At the end of the day, however, I would rather see Israel win, not Hamas.
Also, when people say “but what about the children”, it sounds just as disingenuous as when conservatives say it. You should remember that Hamas and their ilk are not your friends, nor are they liberal or progressive or Marxist. They are brainwashed religious zealots who would happily torture and kill you if they could.
civilian collateral damage
Nazis can fuck off.
This is exactly what I’m calling out, using individual crimes to justify genocide.
You won’t even accurately address the crimes because they are so heinous.
We are talking about genocide. Starving children is in no way a military operation so you can suck that lie back up your ass.
Cutting off aid to Gaza in order to starve out the militants hiding in the civilian population is at least a plausible justification. Again, we can debate whether Israel has taken it too far, but using siege tactics doesn’t make someone a Nazi. Nice try.
But what is your justification for raping people?
By your twisted and fucked up logic, raping people is a justifiable military operation: you rape enough people some of them ought to be military personnel and it causes irreparable harm that may dissuade them to continue fighting.
Rape, civilian casualties, killing children….all of them are unacceptable. Now fuck off you nazi piece of shit.
You mad, bro?
You’re still a nazi bro?
The point is that it is not collateral damage. The murdering of the civilian Arab population is the point of the IDF operations in Gaza.
There isn’t a single rational person here who would argue that what Hamas has done and is doing is not horrifying and awful. But Hamas is exactly who Netanyahu wanted as the adversary in Gaza. He has set this stage very carefully in order to bring about the exact scenario that is being played out in Israel and Gaza right now.
You make a great point about Netanyahu. He’s a terrible person. But he didn’t start Hamas or write their charter for them, nor did he create the Iranian theocracy or force them to create and support terrorist proxy groups. Netanyahu is an opportunist. He took advantage of an existing situation and made it worse.
Also, unfortunately, there are plenty of people on Lemmy who do rationalize Hamas’s actions as a justified “lashing out” by the victims. I don’t buy that argument for a second. No society is entirely just and history certainly isn’t fair, but that doesn’t mean we should allow murder, rape, and torture as a response. The armchair revolutionaries on Lemmy disagree. What they don’t realize is that most real revolutions look less like George Washington crossing the Potomac or Ukraine’s Maidan revolution and more like Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your own mind, but this whole conflict wouldn’t be happening if some crazy religious people hadn’t stolen lots of land in the first place, and then persecuted the remaining inhabitants.
The “crazy religious people” and “who the land belongs to” switches around a lot depending on what year you pick as a baseline - you’re gonna have to be more specific.
Why would you pick any year besides the one which had original people living there as a baseline? I thought they must have been referring to the millenia long holy war over the land, started when the Jews first conquered the land from its previous inhabitants millenia ago. Then the Muslims came and settled there in recent history, and then the Jews tried to take it back. And now both sides are fighting for all of it. (I wouldn’t say ‘crazy’, but definitely mislead) religious people are the cause of the conflict, on both sides.
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They are saying that if the nation of Israel was not established on pre-occupied land by the OG colonizers (UK & US) for the Jewish folks, we as a planet would not be dealing with all of this messed up stuff.
At least, that’s how I interpreted their comment.
Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your own mind, but the land wasn’t stolen and the persecution was perpetuated mutually.
Believe whatever you want in the privacy of your own mind, but the land *was stolen. Lay off Fox and Friends for a bit.
Incorrect, the country was sanctioned by the region’s protectorate and land was procured legally through the sale of deeds. The first war started with “Palestinians” besieging Jerusalem. Go ahead and do more research than reading social media.
When Hamas can’t harm the IDF, they harm the innocent, of both Palestinians and Israelis.
This is not a call only of Israeli women, but a call of every women to be possibly be near these savage people.
While an unfortunate and harrowing ordeal she suffered, her experience highlights a sort of proof that systemic and mass sexual assault is not a weaponized tool of Hamas: reinforcing the grim reality that warfare and the mechanisms that perpetuate it create this kind of collateral destruction. Rules are defined by their exceptions, after all.
Fuck outta here wit this shit.
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NYT is such an serious outlet. They NEVER lied about things. They never lied about Gaddafi, Hussein, Assad, Putin, WMDs, war on terror, war on drugs, China, Venezuela, Nicarágua, México, Jamaica, Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Julian Assange, Snowden. Never!
