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.
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.
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.
I have no love for Hamas and I want to see them eradicated.
You know what my solution is? Go in with boots on the ground and evacuate civilians wherever there’s going to be a military operation. Make it a point to protect civilians and help them. Root out the militants where you can, evacuate civilians, and kill them. If there’s a hospital where militants are hiding, declare it a truce zone and embed yourself in the hospital by helping doctors and delivering aid. Don’t initiate any confrontation, and respect the truce. Your presence there prevents them from acting. Don’t bomb the place.
It would mean more military casualties, but that’s the price paid for being the good guys. We can’t indiscriminately bomb the enemy and kill scores of innocent people. That doesn’t help you win the war anyway.
The IDF is no closer to their poorly defined victory than they were months ago. All they have to show for is a whole lot of dead civilians, and hostages they killed themselves.
