Over the first four days of Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange, Israel arrests 133 Palestinians while releasing 150.
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But the worry for Palestinian prisoners does not end after their release. The majority of those freed are usually rearrested by Israeli forces in the days, weeks, months and years after their release.
Dozens of those who were arrested in a 2011 Israel-Hamas prisoner exchange were rearrested and had their sentences reinstated.
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Many of the women and children released during the truce have testified to the abuse they experienced in Israeli prisons.
Several videos have also emerged in recent weeks of Israeli soldiers beating, stepping on, abusing and humiliating detained Palestinians who have been blindfolded, cuffed and stripped either partially or entirely. Many social media users said the scenes brought back memories of the torture tactics used by United States forces in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in 2003.
Exactly.
So why are people not calling out Gaza, which is ruled by a terrorist organization that commits mass murders, mass rape, infanticide and terrorism?
Whatever Hamas did, Israel did to Gaza ten times more. I condemn Hamas. Do you condemn Israel?
I condemn any atrocities committed by any side against innocent civilians.
Doesn’t matter whether it’s Hamas or the IDF or Islamic Jihad or militant settlers in the West Bank or Hezbollah or Huthi rebels firing rockets into Israel.
Can I ask you why you would say that you condemn Hamas rather than saying “I condemn Gaza” - given that Hamas is being treated as the official representation of the people of Gaza, that Hamas has majority approval in the population of Gaza, that the October 7th attackers came from Gaza, that the rocket attacks are being launched from Gaza, etc?
Because I don’t think Hamas are democratically chosen in Gaza. Their approval rates actually dropped a shit ton before the attack. Last election was in 2006, right? With a population of 50% children, and all the people Israel killed, how many of those do you think voted in 2006 or are still alive?
Gaza is not a country. It’s an open air prison created by Israel. People there lack basic freedom. I will not condemn them for the actions of a single faction. I should have also been more specific, my problems are not the government of Gaza, but the militant side of it. I will not blame a nation kept behind a wall like dogs to rot and die… I will always blame the aggressor who put them there instead.
So again, I want to ask, do you condemn Israel SPECIFICALLY? Yes/no would be good, thanks.
That’s true for the majority of nations in the region, though, isn’t it?
Nobody elected the House of Saud to rule Saudi Arabia. Nobody democratically chose the House of Al Thani to rule Qatar. Nobody voted on having the House of Maktoum rule Dubai.
Israel withdrew its troops from Gaza, it evacuated Jewish settlers, it tore down illegal Jewish settlements, it handed over Israeli assets to the Palestinians, it effectively completely handed over control.
It didn’t open its borders to Gaza, just like Egypt didn’t open its borders to Gaza.
If Gaza is an open air prison, isn’t Egypt to blame, too?
People there primarily lack basic freedom because they’re being ruled by an Islamist terrorist organization that claims for itself to be the official government of Gaza.
But how is that different from other nations like Saudi Arabia or Dubai or Qatar or Bahrain or Abu Dhabi - other than the fact that those totalitarian regimes are swimming in money, and Palestinians aren’t (ignoring the fact that Hamas leadership managed to squirrel away $11 billion for itself)?
I find it hard to draw a line, since the official government of Gaza often just echoes the exact same language used by its terrorist wing.
But let’s say it were possible to draw a strict line: would you then be willing to do the same for Israel as well? Are you explicitly drawing a distinction between Likud and e.g. Shas or Labor or Hadash-Ta’al? Or between militant settlers building illegal settlements in the West Bank, and people practicing communal socialism in a kibbutz in Israel proper? Or between people who have been demonstrating for months against the Netanyahu government, and people voting for and supporting Netanyahu?
Or do you just not care, and you’ll simply condemn all and anything under the label of Israel?
That’s REALLY kind of predicated upon your answer to how you would define Israel or draw distinctions between groups within Israel.
But let me ask you: why do you appear to be so unhappy with a position that condemns any and all violence against innocent civilians? Given how many different sides and factions are committing so many different atrocities, isn’t that a reasonable position?