Imperialism
Israel
Palestine
Fig. 1. The ruins of a terminal at the Gaza airport. Image by Said Khatib (Agence France-Presse) on September 9, 2018, via the Times of Israel,[1] fair use.
The United Nations reported that sexual assaults and genital mutilation had likely occurred during the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, but “[t]he team said a ‘fully-fledged investigation’ would be required to establish the overall magnitude, scope and specific attribution for the sexual violence,” which is to say we still don’t know very much. We don’t know if Israel Defense Force soldiers raped Palestinian women. We don’t know if Hamas fighters raped women in Israel. We have “clear and convincing information that some hostages taken to Gaza have been subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence and ha[ve] reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing” and we have information “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.”[2]
Gordon Lubold, Nancy A. Youssef, and Annie Linskey, “U.S. to Deliver Aid to Gaza Through Military Airdrops,” Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-expected-to-deliver-aid-to-gaza-through-military-air-drops-79814c51
Ishaan Tharoor, “Gaza’s spiraling, unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” Washington Post, March 1, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2024/03/01/gaza-humanitarian-catastrophe/
Tara Copp, “US military aircraft airdrop thousands of meals into Gaza in emergency humanitarian aid operation,” Associated Press, March 2, 2024, https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-airdrop-humanitarian-assistance-f8bc071193f89906abf21478bc70a084
Felicia Schwartz, “US begins Gaza aid airdrops after Joe Biden rebukes Israel,” Financial Times, March 2, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/c36c0386-8acb-48bc-a84b-8dfa636d00b4
Felicia Schwartz and Mehul Srivastava, “Israel has ‘basically signed on’ to a ceasefire, US official says,” Financial Times, March 2, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/b42490ae-8ea1-4744-8745-87123450c6c6
Neri Zilber and Felicia Schwartz, “Netanyahu allies lash out at Gantz over Washington trip,” Financial Times, March 3, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/1068b774-6ce2-4b41-8552-df64d12c7be1
Michelle Nichols, “UN team says rape, gang rape likely occurred during Hamas attack on Israel,” Reuters, March 4, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-team-says-rape-gang-rape-likely-occurred-during-hamas-attack-israel-2024-03-04/
Ishaan Tharoor, “Biden’s rift with Netanyahu grows wider,” Washington Post, March 5, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com//world/2024/03/05/biden-netanyahu-gantz/
- [1]Agence France-Presse and Times of Israel, “20 years after its opening, destroyed Gaza airport embodies grounded peace hopes,” Times of Israel, September 12, 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/20-years-after-its-opening-destroyed-gaza-airport-embodies-grounded-peace-hopes/↩
- [2]Michelle Nichols, “UN team says rape, gang rape likely occurred during Hamas attack on Israel,” Reuters, March 4, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-team-says-rape-gang-rape-likely-occurred-during-hamas-attack-israel-2024-03-04/↩