CW: Sexual Violence | Reading About Rape by Israelis Has Left Me Sick

[IrisieMendimeve]

I honestly don’t even know how to process what I’ve just read.

The article detailing accounts of sexual violence against Palestinians has left me feeling sick to my stomach. The sheer brutality described, people being humiliated, violated, and terrorised in ways that no human being should ever endure, is beyond horrifying. I had to stop reading more than once because it was just too much to take in.

What’s even more disturbing is that these aren’t isolated claims suddenly appearing out of nowhere. The suggestion that there are multiple testimonies, patterns, and reports pointing to this kind of abuse makes it feel even heavier. It raises that awful question of how much suffering goes unseen, unheard, or dismissed, especially when those responsible hold power over others.

As a mum, I keep thinking about the families behind these stories. The women, the men, the children, the ripple effect of this kind of trauma doesn’t just stop with the individual. It shapes entire lives, generations even. The idea of anyone’s child being subjected to such cruelty is unbearable.

I’m not posting this to start an argument about politics or take sides. I’m posting because, at a very basic human level, this is devastating. No one should ever have that kind of power over another person’s body or dignity, and when systems allow or ignore it, something is deeply wrong.

It just makes me question how easily people can be dehumanised, and how important it is that we don’t look away or accept it as inevitable. Basic humanity should never depend on who you are or where you’re born.

I just feel heartbroken, and honestly quite helpless. I don’t really have answers, just a deep sense that none of this should be happening, anywhere, to anyone.

Would really appreciate hearing how others are processing this, because I’m struggling to shake it.

www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/opinion/israel-palestinians-sexual-violence.html

What on earth. The entire world watched October 7 in horror. Every single media outlet around the globe reported on it extensively. Reporters were invited to watch the footage with huge numbers sobbing and struggling to watch. Many reporters, and subsequently huge numbers of readers, said exactly that it was too painful to watch and keep reading. The stories of the survivors who were brave enough to speak out have been published across every media outlet I know. The posters of the hostages have been printed and placed on lamp posts all over my city and I'm sure many other cities.

There was no downplaying what happened. It was the opposite with wave upon wave of unconditional support and world wide mourning. Western countries decried the attack and offered every level of assistance. Perhaps you live in an unusual part of the world if you didn't witness the mass grief and horror at the attack?

The 'heavy focus' on the atrocities committed against Palestines is non-existent. Plenty of people don't know that there was any history to the conflict prior to October 7, let alone the illegal settlements, land grab and violence against Palestians. It's been known that sexual violence was occuring in Israeli prisons. The UN concluded this in 2024

'The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against Palestinians since 7 October across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) indicate that specific forms of Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) are part of Israeli Security Forces (ISF) operating procedures.'

And this in 2025

'sexual abuse of Palestinians is "committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel's top civilian and military leadership." Acts of sexual violence such as compulsory nudity, rape threats and sexual assault "comprise part of the Israeli Security Forces' standard operating procedures toward Palestinians", says the report, with Commission member Chris Sidoti adding that, "Sexual violence is now so widespread that it can only be considered systematic. It's got beyond the level of random acts by rogue individuals.'

The world has known for a long time. It's simply been much easier to ignore it. It's another way that Palestinians are dehumanised.

Any sexual abuse and rape is horrific but this is not a new thing exclusive to Israel.

Confict related sexual violence has been increasingly recognised over the last century and is addressed in international human rights law via the Geneva Convention, and increasingly recognised by International Criminal Law.

Where was your horrified response when it was going on in the former Yugoslavia, Ukraine and the DRC, to name just a few?

Because this is the CITME board. Not old or concurrent conflicts in Europe.

Apologies. Thought I was elsewhere 😳

The guy who came up with this story also said Israelis stole Palestinian bodies for organs (see the problem with believing this?) and that israelis had vapouriser guns with which they vapourised people.

Look a country that managed to pull off something like the pager attack and managed to set up a military base in another country without anyone noticing is hardly likely to be like “oooh rape dogs…we should do rape dogs…”. It’s clearly conspiracy theory bollocks. There have been the mossad dolphins, the soy pigeons the cow spy. It’s just low IQ shit isn’t it. There are literally 7 million jews in israel, they spemd a lot of time under bombardment from gaza and lebanon, do you really think given their position in the middle east they decided to allocate funding and time to rape dogs?

Yes I believe there are abuses, as there are in all prisons unfortunately and there are some legitimate criticism of Israel here, but come on. People will believe any old shit about Israel.

Perhaps if international journalists were allowed in, there would be less room for circumspection and the ‘any old shit’ could be scrutinised as it should.

Israel have killed well over 200 journalists.

Their safety would have to be respected first

What 'guy who came up with this story' are you talking about?

The author of the nyt piece said none of the things you are talking about. Are you talking about someone else?

Absolutely

Euromed, the head of euromed is closely aligned with hamas and he’s an idiot.

Many of those are hamas members, they wait a few months and then declare they were a commander.

Euromed, thats where he got the lead from the story. You may be interested to know a few years ago someone posited the lack of rapes of Palestinians was due to racism on the part of the IDF. We went from “the IDF don’t rape because they are so racist they don’t see Palestinians as human enough to rape” to “israelis managed to train dogs to rape despite the fact that biological and physical differences mean that teaching a dog to rape on command will actually be quote difficult but we believe it!”.

A lot of this effort is to distract from the hamas rapes and genital mutilation committed by not only hamas but Palestinian civilians. Nails and scalpels hammered into Israeli womens vaginas, women shot in the head or stabbed whilst being raped etc. this whole thing is hamas propaganda which people will gobble up without asking how you even get a dog to rape a human on command.

Appalling that Palestinian journalists are being smeared.

Israel could allow international journalists in but they won’t. Why is that?

I don’t know if it’s peri but I’m getting increasingly annoyed by people believing any old shit just because they want to.

Whilst a bunch of dumbasses are getting worked up about a patently stupid (for so many reasons) dog rape story, Israel managed to set up a military base in Iraq which they used to launch attacks on Iran without anyone noticing. Now if I were israeli and someone said we can spend a million on working out how to get dogs to rape people or we can soend a million on figuring out how we can set up a great big bloody airstrip in a country and attack a third country from it i would choose the second option.

But Kristof himself(the 2 time Pulitzer prize winning journalist who wrote the piece) interviewed 14 Palestinians for his article and shared their stories of their experiences including rape, threats of sexual violence, humiliation, beatings, and abuse during detention or interactions with Israeli soldiers, prison guards, interrogators, or settlers.

He also cites reports from organizations such as B'Tselem, Save the Children, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and UN investigations alleging patterns of mistreatment and sexualized torture.

Is it right to describe listening to Palestinians as 'believing any old shit'? That seems really dehumanising to me to be honest.

They have twitter, last week I saw the opening of new restaurants (which is wonderful by the way because it means people are not actually starving) and I watched the gaza marathon.

The UN has objected more to israel than countries where you can legally marry a 9ur old. I wouldn’t trust them as far as i could throw them.

Next step the torture prisons?

This is getting boring, I’m out, there are real problems in gaza with food insecurity, there are increasing problems with clan warfare. There are problems of women being raped in exchange for aid, a poor gazan women sent out for help because her daughters school refused to take her unless she wore a hijab. There are so many problems that affect women in gaza that even a two state solution wouldn’t solve.

But yeah rape dogs…

If you care about actual lives you would be talking about how Hamas prevented workers in Gaza from starting rebuilds by not allowing them to cross the yellow line, the himes that children and women would go to. You would be talking about how hamas won’t disarm so aid is not being released.

but yeah rape dogs…..

What a vile post

Do you feel the same way about the report on sexual violence on Oct 7? Israelis chatting shit for the cause, take it with a pinch of salt? Elkayim-Levy has quite a bit of controversy surrounding her.

https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/skt8j03rt

Is it like October 7?

Or is it less substantiated than that?

Can you provide links to all these claims? You seem to have an in-depth knowledge of what is happening way beyond anyone else has so I would love to know your sources thanks.

Also what does this mean? People chat shit, for the cause
Pretty disgusting and offensive turn of phrase and I am unclear what it is in reference to.

If you care about actual lives
So are you suggesting none of the posters here care about actual lives? or is our care for them inferior to yours somehow? again not sue what you are getting at.

What was the name of the restaurant that opened?

and I watched the gaza marathon.
You watched a 2km race in Gaza and the full marathon run in the west bank. I saw footage too of the race in Gaza, with amputees, children without limbs, people walking supporting each other along the 2km route. What resilient brave people. Details of it here.

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2026/5/8/thousands-run-palestine-marathon-under-shadow-of-israels-war-on-gaza