Rape and Hamas and the denial of rape.

The events of 7th Oct are liable to colour any negotiations because they are vile. I accept what Save the Children says it has been told, of course. I do not support Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians. What makes you think I said I did? Palestine did not exist as a place before Israel was formed, it was a part of the Ottoman Empire and then under British rule by mandate after WWI. Be sure this current mess is not the fault of the UK, it is the fault of those who massacred Jews in the 1930s and 1940s; Israel was set up as redress for that horror, carved out of the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. The current mess is a result of Palestinians, who did not have a country apart from being Ottoman subjects, not accepting Israel. That is understandable, but the events of 7th Oct are not justified by it and will colour how one sees the assault on Gaza. If Hamas wants to stop innocent civilians dying it should come into the open, in uniform, and fight where all can see - not hide in tunnels under hospitals and shoot rockets from among the tents of the displaced.

I'm not trying to swap evidence forever. You said "I have not come across any reliable evidence that children imprisoned in Israel are raped and tortured - Hamas is not a reliable source." I provided you with reliable evidence. People blindly in support of Israel will ignore it, of course. But it is there.

You collapse all of Palestinian resistance- which is an enormous and varied movement from 1948, sparked by Israel violently colonising and dispossessing Palestinians and continuing to violent and non violent resistance (such as the BDS movement) in response to ongoing oppression today- into the reprehensible actions by Hamas on 7 October. It's not reality. Whether you support Palestinian liberation (or equality between Israelis and Palestinians) does not come down to how you feel about October 7.

We can continue to swap evidence on this one forever. I am no friend to Israel's actions against people who oppose the setting up of a Jewish state, but anything Hamas says is unreliable and people of 18 are not children. Abuse, particularly of women, is a frequent event in third world prisons and I hate it with a hatred that burns. Both sides are guilty here, but Hamas is a terrorist organisation (currently holding hostages from Israel) and the Israeli state is not - though I question motives and separate the Jewish state from the Jewish people, many of whom are demonstrating about the war in Gaza because they fear for the hostages Hamas holds, and others have been opposing Netanyahu's policies e.g. of removing some rights from non-Jewish Israeli citizens. Nevertheless, what Hamas did on 7th Oct 2023 was vile, massacre, rape and mutilation, vicious and pre-planned (i.e. not rogue 'soldiers'). The way to fight Israel's mistreatment of young people in gaol is not to go on a rape and mutilation spree. Nor is it any way to achieve peace by firing rockets into another nation's airspace. Hamas will not agree to accept Israel and Israel won't accept the West Bank or Gaza continuing harassment on those grounds. I thank God it isn't my problem but that Israel mistreats prisoners is no excuse for Hamas firing nails into women's genitalia.

Save the Children:

"Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system face physical and emotional abuse, with four out of five (86%) of them being beaten, and 69% strip-searched, according to new research by Save the Children. Nearly half (42%) are injured at the point of arrest, including gunshot wounds and broken bones. Some report violence of a sexual nature and some are transferred to court or between detention centres in small cages, the child rights organisation said."

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/new-research-reveals-ongoing-violence-on-palestinian-children--

United Nations Human Rights Office:

"The experts expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October. Many have reportedly been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten. On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food.

“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online."

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against

I have just implied that I do. Certainly an 8 year old is a child. A thirteen-year-old is a teenager and above the age of criminal responsibility in the UK, as that is 10 years old, but a minor below the age of consent (16) so they merit special treatment. A seventeen-year-old is not a child, and a nor is a person of fifteen (though again, a minor and below the age of consent but not of criminal responsibility). I have not come across any reliable evidence that children imprisoned in Israel are raped and tortured - Hamas is not a reliable source. I do know what went on in Israel on Oct 7th, I saw the pictures of women with their trousers covered in blood. I saw young women being abducted from the Nova festival - you are naive if you do not know what their fate would be: rape, possibly gang rape, probably both over all the weeks they remain a hostage, if they live. I also know that Hamas is embedded within the civilian population of Gaza, and I saw that civilian population (at least the male section) cheering the brave men who had their feet on the naked body of a young woman they had taken from the Nova festival. She was dead.

When Spain invaded the Netherlands in the fifteenth century (religious conflict) it is said that every merchant's wife was raped. Such was the reputation of Spanish soldiers that one of the fears when the Armada approached England in 1588 was that there would be mass rapes in London - put this way: 'our virgins deflowered before our sight'. For some reason, when doing a programme on Elizabeth I and the Armada, Lucy Worsley found this line funny.

They ignore/deny it because they agree with it.

A thread about the rape of Israelis turns into a thread about how horrible Israel are and reminders that Palestinians are rapes as well.

What a fucking surprise.

@ThereAreNoSloesOnThere You are right though. I have seen so many comments demanding proof these women were raped.

Yes, this has gone off tangent quite a bit @TemporalMechanic and quite right.

In practice the age of consent in England is 14 if both having sex are 14 or 15 years old. The same as Israel. England legal guidance is not to prosecute in that situation.

Yes. My apologies. Their voices need to be heard, many didn't survive to use their voices and I believe that some have taken their lives since.

To clarify this, it can be 14 if the partner is close in age. So teenagers aren't being prosecuted for having consensual sex with each other.

Not sure what the scare quotes are for but if one person doesn't consent it's illegal at any age. Which brings us back to our thread topic. There is no justification for raping women. Israeli women or women from anywhere else, but this thread is about the former.

A quick google say age 12. I'm not sure of all the laws in the world but I'd imagine the death penalty.

It can be as low as 14 if both 'consent'

What is the punishment in Gaza for 'collaboration' with Israel, and at what age would you be subject to it?

@trampoline123 the age of consent in Israel is 16 years old.
In Gaza girls can legally marry from 15 years old.

12 in Scotland, but also in Scotland under 25 year olds who commit atrocious crimes just get a pat on the head

Legal age of responsibility is 10 in UK isn't it.

That's how old James Bulger's killers were.

What about 8 year olds or 13 year olds @Grammarnut do you consider that a child?

Israel have been kidnapping, torturing and terrorising children for years. Since Oct 7th alone it's reported over 600 children from the West Blank alone have been detained. Do you think throwing stones or other pathetic reason you can come up with justifies that? Many reports of rape too. Although the IDF probably don't see it as rape given you can legally have sex in Israel with a 14 year old if they 'consent.'

Do some independent research and open your eyes up a bit to what's really going on.

Well, I would prefer to live in Israel. I am sorry about your relative. But no, I do not consider a 15-year-old a child (when I was that age most of the 15-year-olds were at work in full-time jobs), though I am perfectly aware that my country says that legally they are. But they are minors and suggesting they are children removes all responsibility from them, and they know perfectly well what they are doing. I am not particularly a supporter of Israel, but Hamas committed gang rape, rape and murder. Currently they are causing the deaths of women and children in Gaza by living among them, setting up their bases in and around refugee camps.

Not really sure what that last sentence has to do with anything really, but well done to you I guess?

It is of no surprise to me that you would not consider a Palestinian 15 year old a child, despite being a child in almost every legal and political system, in year 9 or 10 of school, unable to drive or drink alcohol in western countries. It makes it easier to justify the horror Israel enacts onto our beautiful precious boys.

I said their PARENTS are involved in politics. The children are arrested to punish and deter their parents. Or for whatever reason. Our family member was arrested for being in the same area that a settler was attacked (he has a physical disability making it impossible to be him who did it). Then they are held in administrative detention without charge. Sometimes for years. Often tortured. Often sexually abused. Our relative has been in administrative detention for two decades without even a trial.

But again congratulations on deciding Israel is your middle eastern country of choice "as a woman". How feminist.

I’m so sorry @Yazzi

I am not lying about the sling shots. As to the suppression of political affiliation in the West Bank I do not know, but if those politics involve 'from the river to the sea' i.e. the destruction of Israel, I am not really surprised. There is no reliable evidence for torture of children by Israel. And I do not consider 15 to 19 year olds children - I do not know many five-year-olds, or indeed 11-year-olds, interested in attending political meetings, so I am assuming the children you speak of are teenagers.
I think a Jewish homeland would have been better founded somewhere else than the Middle East, and had the Holocaust not happened perhaps we would not be in this position now for there would not have been the impetus of guilt. But the Holocaust did happen and we have Israel, and if I had to choose I would prefer, as a woman, to live in Israel for all its faults, than anywhere else in the Middle East.

I'm sorry that happened to your family @Yazzi ❤️