Israel 'brutally' detains people in occupied Syria: Journalist

‘We were interrogated multiple times, intimidated and threatened. I was thrown to the ground and beaten because I refused to cooperate with the army by unlocking my phone,’ says Sylvain Mercadier


After the interrogation, Mercadier said they were driven to another village and released. 

Photo: AFP


Sylvain Mercadier, a French journalist detained by the Israeli army in Syrian territory, described being beaten and “brutally interrogated” by Israeli soldiers.

Mercadier, who was detained alongside Syrian activist and lawyer Muhammed Fayyad, spoke to Anadolu about the incident that occurred while they were working in the village of Hamidiye.

He said that after the Israeli army attempted to seize their computers, they were “brutally” detained with their hands cuffed behind their backs and mouths gagged.

Mercadier recounted being taken to a building converted into a military base by the Israeli army in the occupied Golan Heights.

“For four hours, we were forced to sit on the ground cross-legged with our hands behind our backs. We were mistreated, insulted and humiliated by the soldiers,” he said.

He said they were frequently interrogated, intimidated and subjected to repeated humiliation.

“We were interrogated multiple times, intimidated and threatened. I was thrown to the ground and beaten because I refused to cooperate with the army by unlocking my phone,” he added.

After the interrogation, Mercadier said they were driven to another village and released. However, he noted that their SIM cards, phones, cameras and memory cards were not returned.

“I was deprived of my equipment needed for work,” he added.

The Israeli army detained Mercadier and Fayyad in the Quneitra region of Syria on Dec. 8, 2024 and claimed that after questioning, the two were released along with their personal belongings.

Israel’s attacks and occupation of Syria

Following intensified clashes in Syria on November 27 and the collapse of the 61-year-old Baath regime on December 8, Israeli military attacks on the country increased.

The Israeli army expanded its occupation in the Golan Heights, advancing within 25 kilometres (15.5 miles) of Damascus.

Israel has occupied Syria’s Golan Heights since 1967, and the 1974 Disengagement Agreement between Israel and Syria established the boundaries of the demilitarised zone.

SOURCE: AA

ZIONISM IS IMPERIALISM

Israel reportedly plans to set up 'control zone', intel network in Syria

Israeli plan over Syria includes establishing a 60-km-wide zone under Israeli intelligence monitoring to "thwart potential threats."


Since Syrian anti-regime groups overthrew Bashar al Assad on December 8, Israel has intensified its air strikes across Syria, violating the country’s sovereignty. 

/ Photo: Reuters Archive


Israel has been reportedly planning to establish a "control zone" extending 15 kilometres into Syria and an intelligence "influence area" reaching up to 60 km, according to the daily Yedioth Ahronoth.


The report published on Friday, citing unnamed Israeli officials, outlined that the Israeli army aims to maintain an operational "buffer zone" 15 kilometres into Syrian territory to "prevent attacks on the Golan Heights."


The plan also includes establishing a 60-km-wide zone under Israeli intelligence monitoring to "thwart potential threats."


Israeli officials have justified these measures by expressing distrust in Syria's new administration under Ahmad al Sharaa, the report said.


The Israeli officials criticised Western nations for engaging with Syria's new administration, describing their actions as “naive and dangerous.”


One unnamed senior official said: "The US, Britain, and Germany are rushing to embrace Sharaa, whom we view as a dangerous individual. The West is deliberately ignoring the threat he poses while neighbouring Arab countries understand the risks and warn against him."

The official also expressed frustration over the recent US decision to lift a $10 million bounty on Sharaa’s head and ease sanctions on Syria.


Another official stressed: "Just as we stopped Iran from gaining a foothold in Syria, we will not allow Hamas or [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad to establish themselves there."


Israel also views the current situation as an opportunity to create a new operational framework, according to the report. This includes controlling missile-free zones within 15 kilometres of its border and ensuring long-term intelligence dominance in the region.


Since Syrian anti-regime groups overthrew Bashar al Assad on December 8, Israel has intensified its air strikes across Syria, violating the country’s sovereignty.




Israel has also unilaterally terminated the 1974 Disengagement Agreement with Syria, deploying forces in the demilitarised buffer zone in the occupied Golan Heights. The UN and several Arab nations have condemned the move.


While Israel claims its presence is temporary, officials have hinted at the necessity of maintaining influence in Syria for the foreseeable future.


Critics argue that Israel had previously preferred Assad’s regime as a "useful player" and is now grappling with the uncertainty of Syria's new leadership.


As Israel solidifies its plans, the region braces for escalating tensions, with Tel Aviv seeking international backing after the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.

FEMICIDE REDUX

New Syrian justice minister 'oversaw execution of women for prostitution' in 2015

Video has appeared showing Syrian justice minister Shadi Al-Waisi reportedly overseeing the execution of two women accused of prostitution in Idlib in 2015

The New Arab Staff
05 January, 2025

Shadi Al-Waisi was an Islamic judge in rebel-held areas of Syria before becoming justice minister [Getty]

Footage has appeared online purportedly showing the justice minister in the new Syrian government, Shadi Al-Waisi, overseeing the execution of two women in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province in 2015.

In one video, shared on Telegram and other platforms, a woman in the town of Maaret Misreen in Idlib province is shown surrounded by fighters next to a wall covered with writing saying “Jabhat Al-Nusra”, the name of the predecessor organisation to Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which spearheaded the rebel assault which overthrew Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on 8 December.

A man believed to be Shadi Al-Waisi is seen at the beginning of the video, armed with a gun and apparently ordering the woman to kneel, as she begs for mercy.

She then kneels as one fighter recites verses from the Quran and says that there is “decisive proof” that she had committed adultery and engaged in prostitution, spreading “corruption on earth”.

Another fighter then shoots her in the head with a pistol and she falls to the floor.

The Syrian fact-checking site Verify-Sy rated the video as “confirmed” and said that voice analysis showed a high degree of match between recent interviews given by Al-Waisi and the man believed to be Al-Waisi in the 2015 video.

It also quoted a “high-level source” in the new Syrian authorities, which it didn’t name, as saying the man was indeed Al-Waisi, who at that time was serving as an Islamic judge in areas controlled by Jabhat al-Nusra.

‘We have passed this stage’

The source from the Syrian interim government told Verify-Sy: “This video shows the application of the law at a certain time and place… but we wish to point out that this act shows a stage we have passed.”

“It is not appropriate to publish or use this video to describe the current situation, given the change in circumstances. We confirm our solid legal and procedural commitment to the new principles and rules agreed by Syrians, which include justice and the rule of law,” the source added.

There have, however, been calls for the minister to resign or be held accountable after the video.

Syrian journalist and political activist Rami Jarrah told The New Arab, “Syrian Muslim communities do not correspond to this medieval behaviour… Moving forward this kind of backwards mentality that allows women to receive lashes or are executed in public squares must be rejected.”

He said that Al-Waisi should either admit “that his actions in 2015, and the system which he operated under were wrong”, or resign or be dismissed.

“The Syrian revolution [of 2011] set out with very clear goals of equality and democracy, its message was an inspiration to millions of Syrians and people of all nations around the world - that inspiration had nothing to do with this kind of behaviour,” Jarrah added.

In 2017, two years after the video appeared, Jabhat al-Nusra which was the Al-Qaeda extremist group’s affiliate in Syria, rebranded itself as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and severed all links with Al-Qaeda.

Since then the group has tried to present a more moderate image, saying it will respect the rights of women and religious minorities in Syria.

However, Al-Waisi also sparked controversy following a recent interview in which he claimed that most Syrians support the application of Islamic sharia law in Syria.

New Syria government unblocks websites banned by Assad regime

Syria's new communications minister said he is ensuring banned websites are now unblocked and citizens have access to faster and better quality Internet.

The New Arab Staff
07 January, 2025


Syria's new government is easing restrictions on Internet connectivity and access [Getty]

Syria's ministry of communications has announced the lifting of restrictions put in place by the ousted Assad regime with dozens of websites unblocked.

The changes include increased internet speed to ensure all citizens have access to better quality communications, Hussein al-Masri, the new communications minister told the SANA news agency.

Also lifted are bans on pro-revolution content, which the former regime had blocked.

"We have cancelled internet speed limits in provinces such as Daraa and Quneitra to improve internet quality and facilitate access to information and electronic services," he said.

"We have lifted the block on websites that supported the Syrian revolution to enhance freedom of expression and access to information."


The next plan for the ministry is to connect northern Syria to other provinces for better communication across the country, following years of de-facto separation.

"We are always seeking to take measures that contribute to improving the lives of citizens in a free Syria," he added.

The steps come as part of the new administration’s plans to address other outstanding issues and manage the transitional phase.

According to a 2020 report by Freedom House, a US organisation supporting democracy around the world, internet freedoms under Assad were severely restricted with government repression of dissent at an all-time high.

The organisation said journalists and online activists regularly faced arrest, detentions, and torture.

'Internet rationing' was also implemented by the now-ousted Assad regime amid the war and economic crisis, which saw a cap on the amount of data citizens were able to use each month.

If they exceeded the threshold of broadband connection, the speed was reduced, with big price increases.

This, the organisation argued, was another curb for civil liberties and political rights in the country.

Most activists in the country engaged in self-censorship and hid their identities to prevent repression or persecution from security sources under Assad.

Freedom House states that Syria’s telecommunications infrastructure is one of the least developed in the Middle East region, with damage to infrastructure from bombing also a leading factor.


The de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa has repeatedly promised to maintain freedoms in the country after rebel groups led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham toppled the Assad regime in December.

TURKIYE'S IMPERIALIST WAR ON SYRIAN KURDISTAN

Syria must be given chance to address Kurd militants: Turkey

The New Arab Staff
09 January, 2025

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Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday that the new Syrian administration should be given an opportunity to address the presence of Kurdish militants in the country, but reiterated that Ankara would act against them otherwise.

Speaking at a press conference in Istanbul, Fidan said it was wrong to classify Turkey's battle against Kurdish militants as a battle against Kurds, adding Ankara was now evaluating its presence in Syria in light of the new situation there.

He said Russia had taken a very rational decision when it cut support for ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and that it could have militarily supported him in stopping the rebels' advance.

He added that he did not expect any problems with the United States in counter-terrorism in Syria despite its support for groups that Ankara views as terrorists.

 France ignoring Turkey's security concerns in Syria: Ankara

10:07 AM

The New Arab Staff & Agencies

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Turkey on Friday accused France of ignoring Ankara's security concerns in Syria by not repatriating French jihadists but leaving them to be guarded by a group Ankara views as a terror threat.

"They have a policy, they do not bring ISIS prisoners back to their own countries. But they do not care about our security," Turkey's top diplomat Hakan Fidan told reporters in Istanbul.

Manifest Destiny: Is this expansionist US political doctrine driving Trump?

The 19th-century imperialistic geopolitical agenda envisaged America as a divinely ordained guardian of global democracy and freedom.

Murat Sofuoglu

TRT WORLD Magazine
a day ago


Trump wants to expand US territories further with Canada, Panama Canal and Greenland, echoing the 19th century American expansionist concept of Manifest Destiny, according to American historians. 

Photo: Reuters


In 1845, conservative American journalist John O’Sullivan coined the term Manifest Destiny as the overlying principle of the great American dream – “to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us”.


A year after O’Sullivan laid claim to the whole of the North American continent, then-president James Polk, a Democrat and a big fan of the expansionist concept, waged a war against neighbouring Mexico to extend American territories as far as the Pacific Ocean.


Polk’s war, which legendary American general Ulysses S Grant denounced as the “most unjust war ever”, helped the US claim 55 percent of the Spanish-speaking state, including areas corresponding to current California, Nebraska, New Mexico and a few other states.


Nearly two centuries after O’Sullivan justified expanding “democratic” rule across the continent, President-elect Donald Trump seems to have invoked the same doctrine to lay out his own imperialist agenda – to seize Canada, take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.


“Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State,” Trump said in a social media post, drawing a sharp rebuke from outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.


“While Manifest Destiny (in a modern form) has remained an implicit assumption of US leaders ever since, Donald Trump embodies it as a modern ‘manifestation’ better than any president since Teddy Roosevelt, over a hundred years ago,” says William Earl Weeks, a professor of history at San Diego State University and the author of several books, including the Building the Continental Empire: American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War.


“Trump seems to intuitively grasp that ‘making America great again’ requires that the nation return to its expansionist roots, both for strategic as well as ideological reasons,” Weeks tells TRT World.


Toward Manifest Destiny


According to Weeks, Manifest Destiny envisages the US as “a godly-ordained nation” on a universal divine mission to bring freedom and representative government, not just to the Western hemisphere but to the whole world.


Adam Dahl, professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, agrees.


“The idea of Manifest Destiny is quite complex and has many moving parts. (But) the core of the idea is that the US has a divine right to expand across the North American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific,” Dahl tells TRT World.


AP Archive
This undated artwork shows the Oregon Trail in 1844. The US settler expansion toward the West led to the destruction of large number of Indigenous populations.


He also points to the inherent racism of the ideology, which saw Indigenous populations as “less civilised and in need of the guidance of a superior population”, which led to a staggering loss of Native American lives and large displacement during its march from the east to the west.


After 13 original American colonies gained independence from British colonial rule through a series of battles in the late 18th century, the new state sailed for expansion, reaching a deal with France to purchase Louisiana, which doubled the size of the country in 1803.


Trump, incidentally, is inspired by the Louisiana Purchase for his Greenland project.


All this, alongside technological and economic progress the new state rapidly made, increased the political confidence of many Americans, who felt that “their presumed Godly destiny had been made apparent--or ‘manifest’”, according to Weeks.


“Presumed destiny became proven destiny by the 1840s, the decade the term was first used,” he adds.


Later, the same justification was used for overseas interventions by the US in the name of defending democracy – from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union. While the US was victorious in both world wars and the Cold War, American interferences and invasions have not stopped.


“Most recently, you certainly saw elements of Manifest Destiny in the 2003 invasion in Iraq… after WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) were not found, the justification for the war shifted to bringing democracy in the form of free elections to Iraqis,” says Dahl, who wrote Empire of the People: Settler Colonialism and the Foundations of Modern Democratic Thought.


“The idea of manifest destiny is baked into US foreign policy thinking. It lays the foundation for this notion of the US as the leader of the ‘free world’," says Dahl, pointing out former president Woodrow Wilson’s argument to enter WWI to make the world “safe for democracy.”


Wilson was one of the presidents who directly referred to the term Manifest Destiny, Dahl says, adding, “It's difficult to separate the idea of Manifest Destiny from any phase of US foreign policy making in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries”.


AP Archive
In this 1916 file photo, President Woodrow Wilson throws the first ball at a baseball game in Washington. Wilson was one of the presidents who directly referred to the term Manifest Destiny.


‘Expand or die’


Trump’s imperialist agenda comes amid alleged signs of weakening or decline in the American political and economic structure, apparently spotted by some leading political analysts in recent decades.


Is Trump merely a reactionary to those who promote the idea of the American demise?


“​​Unlike some recent presidents, Trump is unapologetically American and understands that if the US stops expanding, stops reaching for greatness in various forms, then it will slowly die, or at least become much less important on the global stage,” says Weeks.


From this political perspective, which identifies US supremacy with global security, the professor says that Trump’s references on “acquiring Greenland, making Canada a state, and re-securing the Panama Canal, are not surprising to me, and actually make a great deal of sense”.


Dahl, however, is not so sure about the ideological depth of Trump’s comments on the Panama Canal and Greenland, which has “the tone of a shady real estate transaction rather than touching the notes of the lofty and idealistic rhetoric of Manifest Destiny”.

But he does see “subtle elements” of the Manifest Destiny ideology at play in both cases due to their long connections with US continental interests, which was dubbed the Monroe Doctrine by President James Monroe in 1823.



Others

After Colombia refused to ratify a treaty with the US on the construction of the Panama Canal in the early 1900s, Washington adopted a policy of supporting Panama's separatism from Bogota. Eventually, Panama became an independent state in 1903 with active US military and political support.


The Monroe Doctrine sees any European intervention into the Americas as a potential hostile act against the US. In this context, the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, which advocate US expansion across the continent, have strong links with each other, according to historians.


“The idea of Manifest Destiny was crucially connected to the Monroe Doctrine,” says Dahl. In the modern context, the Monroe Doctrine applies to any external powers, including China, which has increased investments in Greenland and has a significant commercial presence in the Panama Channel.


“Asserting US superiority in both areas could be interpreted as a means of opposing Chinese economic power and reasserting US claims over the Western hemisphere as its own distinctive sphere of influence,” he adds.


Like Weeks, Dahl also points out that proponents of Manifest Destiny have historically viewed a strong connection between imperialism and democracy.


“....American democracy grows and develops through time by expanding in space. Without limitless frontiers of expansion, proponents of Manifest Destiny fear that American democracy would stall and begin to degenerate into either anarchy or tyranny.”


‘America First’


Former US diplomat Matthew Bryza draws a parallel between the Manifest Destiny of the 19th century and Trump’s America First agenda, pushed by his MAGA support base and close aides, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk.


“Manifest Destiny was a philosophy of the 19th century. But echoes of the concept of American exceptionalism…seem to animate Trump’s ‘America First’ approach,” Bryza tells TRT World.


The Manifest Destiny rhetoric is evident in Musk’s world of spacefaring ambitions, says Dahl, drawing attention to the fact that the world’s richest man is a source of inspiration for the "cosmic manifest destiny" of human beings to be “a multi-planetary species”.


“This language is also clearly evident in the way US officials equate space colonisation with US westward expansion or speak of space as ‘the final frontier’,” observes the political scientist.

SOURCE: TRT World

Murat Sofuoglu is a staff writer at TRT World.

12 coal miners trapped after mine collapses in southwest Pakistan

Safety standards are sometimes ignored in the coal mining industry in Pakistan, leading to accidents and explosions that have killed numerous mine workers in recent years.


Coal mine accidents happen due to lack of safety standards

 / Photo: AFP

A methane gas explosion caused a mine to collapse in a remote area in southwest Pakistan, trapping at least 12 miners, officials said Friday as authorities launched an operation to rescue the miners.

Abdul Ghani, a mines inspector, said the explosion occurred Thursday night in Singidi, a town in Balochistan province. He said rescuers have been carefully removing debris from the mine for hours as part of a rescue effort. None of the miners had been rescued yet, he added.

Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, said all available resources are being used to save the lives of the coal miners. In a statement, he said an investigation has also been ordered to determine the cause of the collapse of the mine.

On Thursday, Pakistani security forces rescued at least eight of 16 mine workers who had been kidnapped by local armed groups.

Moral responsibility in the age of machine warfare

Rafael Hernández de Santiago
January 09, 2025

ARAB NEWS

Every drone strike and every algorithmic decision carry the weight of moral responsibility. (AFP photo)



In the artificial glow of Techville’s neon lights, the city gleams like a polished machine — a utopia of innovation, efficiency and wealth. Yet beneath its metallic sheen, the cracks of its ideals grow wider, exposing the fragile, chaotic reality of ethics in modern warfare.

Techville, a self-proclaimed beacon of progress, finds itself grappling with questions it can no longer ignore: What happens when the tools of tomorrow clash with the morality of humanity? How does one create coexistence in a world teetering on the brink of its own destruction?

The irony is inescapable. A city built on the promise of a brighter future now finds itself manufacturing instruments of destruction.

Samir’s story, though fictional, echoes across the globe — a child in the crosshairs of conflict, caught between the ambition of advanced weaponry and the simplicity of a wooden toy carved by his father. His life is a stark reminder that the cost of progress is often paid in innocence.

Techville’s most celebrated industry is its defense technology sector, a juggernaut of artificial intelligence, robotics, and quantum computing. “Efficiency for security” is its motto, yet the definition of security remains as elusive as ever.

For Samir, security is the absence of roaring planes and trembling walls. For the architects of war in Techville, it is the cold, calculated numbers on a risk analysis report.

Here lies the crux of the problem: The unpredictability of ethical content in war. Every drone strike and every algorithmic decision carry the weight of moral responsibility.

But who bears this burden? The programmers in their glass towers, insulated from the consequences of their code? The policymakers who sign off on missions with sanitized terms like neutralization or collateral damage? Or the society that cheers for the illusion of safety while its humanity erodes?

It is not just a question for Techville; it is a question for all of us, as we hurtle into an era where machines can kill, decisions are made at the speed of light, and the consequences of those decisions linger for generations.

For Samir, the sky — a symbol of boundless dreams and infinite potential — has become a source of terror. His story is the antithesis of Techville’s vision. While Techville looks upward to the stars with ambition, Samir looks up in fear. His wooden toy, carved with love, stands in quiet defiance against the cold, impersonal machinery that defines his nights.

Yet Samir dreams. He dreams of a sky without drones, of walls that do not tremble, of a place where children can sleep without wondering if tomorrow will come. His dreams, fragile yet persistent, hold a lesson for Techville and for the world: Progress without humanity is a hollow victory.

Techville prides itself on control — over technology, markets, narratives. But control in warfare is a mirage. The algorithms that power Techville’s defense systems are not immune to bias, nor are they capable of understanding the nuanced moral dilemmas of human conflict.


A drone can distinguish between a weapon and a toy, but it cannot comprehend the weight of a child’s fear or the grief of a parent.

Rafael Hernandez de Santiago

A drone can distinguish between a weapon and a toy, but it cannot comprehend the weight of a child’s fear or the grief of a parent.

Moreover, as Techville’s systems grow more sophisticated, they become more opaque. The city’s brightest minds cannot fully explain how their creations make decisions. This unpredictability is not just a flaw; it is also a threat. It is the kind of threat that turns the dream of a safer world into a dystopian nightmare.

The story of Techville and Samir calls for a radical rethinking of coexistence. If progress is to mean anything, it must begin with empathy, with the recognition that our lives are interconnected in ways that transcend borders, technologies and ideologies.

Techville’s leaders must take a page from the past — a past where respect and understanding were not seen as weaknesses but as strengths. The image of a classroom with a cross and the word “Allah” hanging side by side is not just a relic of simpler times; it is also a blueprint for a future where differences are celebrated, not exploited.

This is not a call to abandon technology but to humanize it: To create systems that prioritize life over efficiency, that consider the long-term consequences of actions, that aim not just to win wars, but also to prevent them.

In its quest to build the future, Techville has become a symbol of humanity’s oldest flaw: The belief that power can exist without responsibility. Its neon lights shine bright, but their glare obscures the shadows of the sky — the children like Samir, the families torn apart, the humanity lost in the pursuit of control.

The irony is that the solutions Techville seeks are not found in its labs or algorithms but in the simple, enduring values of compassion, respect and humility — in the soft hum of a mother’s lullaby, in the quiet strength of a father standing guard, in the dreams of a child tracing the grooves of a wooden toy.

As Techville debates its future, the world must listen to the cry for peace that echoes in Samir’s story. It is a cry that transcends borders, languages and technologies. It is a cry that demands we look beyond the immediacy of our ambitions and consider the legacy we leave behind.

The choice is ours: To continue on a path of unpredictability and destruction or to chart a new course — one where coexistence is not just a dream but also a reality, where the sky is a source of wonder, not fear, and where progress is measured not in profits but in the lives we touch and the peace we create.

• Rafael Hernandez de Santiago, viscount of Espes, is a Spanish national residing in Saudi Arabia and working at the Gulf Research Center.


Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view

Exposing ties between MIT and Israel’s army


Nora Barrows-Friedman The Electronic Intifada Podcast

4 January 2025


In a new 83-page report, members of the MIT Coalition for Palestine – made up of 20 different student and faculty groups on campus – are exposing the institutional ties between the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Israeli military.






With meticulous research, these students trace the money and weapons trail that winds through Israel’s genocide in Gaza, unmasking and confronting MIT’s research, as it describes itself, “to make a better world.”

“MIT laboratories on campus conduct weapons and surveillance research directly sponsored by the Israeli military,” the coalition states.



“Since at least 2015, MIT laboratories have received millions of dollars from the Israeli Ministry of Defense for projects to develop algorithms that help drone swarms to better pursue escaping targets; to improve underwater surveillance technology; and support military aircraft evade missiles.”

As students and faculty respond to the global call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, and exposing these ties between their university and Israel’s killing machine in Gaza, MIT has enacted draconian tactics of repression against students and faculty.

Prahlad Iyengar, a graduate student in the electrical engineering and computer science department at MIT studying quantum information science, has been organizing with the Coalition for Palestine at MIT since October 2023.

“The world recognizes that this is a genocide,” he tells The Electronic Intifada Podcast.

“MIT even should recognize that this is a genocide. It violates MIT’s own policies to be funding, groups or to be collaborating with an entity that actually, actively is perpetrating a genocide. It’s a violation of its own audit and risk policy because it’s engaged in active human rights violations. And yet, MIT does not apply that standard to Israel.”

Iyengar said that he was suspended by the university who charged him with “harassment and intimidation” because he asked Lockheed Martin recruiters questions about their weapons program at a career fair on campus.

“I asked a lot about the ethics of working in defense and also about civilian applications. He then directed me to talk to a different recruiter, and I stood in line to talk to that recruiter. By the end of it, the career fair staff had decided that they were going to move Lockheed Martin into a private room, and they were going to move their recruiters there, and they were going to take students one at a time,” he recounts.

“So I stood outside that room, and I stood in line waiting for my chance to talk to the second recruiter, and I never got that chance. I was just waiting outside in line. They submitted video evidence against me in my discipline case, and probably 85 percent of that video evidence is just me standing outside of a room, just on my phone, or maybe talking to some people.”

He adds that the statements that came from the Lockheed Martin recruiters “indicate this idea of unsafety. … The way I see it, it’s a direct attack to sort of suppress the pro-Palestine voice.”

Because of his activism, Iyengar was banned from campus and the administration has begun the process of expulsion.

However, he says that the movement on campus to hold MIT accountable for its research ties with Israel’s military is growing.

“I think I’m fairly confident that we will continue to be able to push down this path and get MIT to stop its ties with the Israeli ministry of defense,” Iyengar says.

Michel DeGraff, who has been a professor of linguistics at MIT for 28 years and is the director of the MIT-Haiti Initiative, discussed how language can be weaponized to provide cover for settler-colonialism and genocide – and how he’s been punished for trying to teach this concept.

He was effectively censored by his department over his proposal for a course on decolonization and liberation.

Even the title of his course elicited anxiety from the administration, he says. “The first reply that I got was that such a title with words like ‘decolonization’ and ‘liberation’ caused concern.”

He was then told “that the course doesn’t fit linguistics, which to me was a shock, because here’s a course that will make linguistics relevant for one of the worst crimes against humanity – if not the worst crime against humanity – a course about the use of language to support genocide. And I was told this is not linguistics,” he says.

As members of the MIT Coalition for Genocide wrote in a recent op-ed for The Electronic Intifada, DeGraff’s “continuous advocacy for his course – and for Palestinian liberation – resulted in administrative sanctions, including a withheld pay raise and by removing him indefinitely from his department, classifying him as ‘faculty at large.’”

“They might still kick me out, although … they only kicked me out of linguistics,” DeGraff says

“But the students have so much more on the line being suspended [or] expelled.”

Produced by Tamara Nassar

Nora Barrows-Friedman

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books, 2014).Twitter

WAIT, WHAT?!

Israel still can’t find any 7 October rape victims, prosecutor admits

Ali Abunimah 

Rights and Accountability 

6 January 2025

ELECTRONIC INTAFADA

An Israeli prosecutor argued that Palestinians detained after 7 October 2023 should be executed for alleged acts such as stealing avocados. This image, leaked to CNN, shows Palestinians detained at Israel’s secretive Sde Teiman torture camp. (Obtained by CNN)

There are still zero complainants in alleged cases of rapes committed by Palestinians on 7 October 2023, an Israeli prosecutor has admitted.

But Moran Gez, who handled cases against Palestinians swept up after the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, is still calling for mass executions even without any substantial evidence against them.

“Anyone who entered Israel from Gaza on 7 October to kill or to loot, it doesn’t matter, should be included in the indictment and, as far as I’m concerned, receive the death penalty,” Gez said.

She said she made this case to colleagues involved in planning prosecutions related to the 7 October events.

“Why? Because of those who didn’t murder but looted, burned, stole, picked avocados, as some claim, because of this mess, the Israeli army forces were unable to arrive in time,” Gez added. “You came to the door with a drill and opened it to loot? Then a terrorist came in and murdered civilians there.”

Until recently the prosecutor in charge of so-called security cases in Israel’s southern district, Gez played a key role in the effort to put Palestinians responsible for what Israel considers criminal acts on 7 October on trial.

No trials have yet taken place.
Lack of evidence

Gez made her comments in an interview with Israeli mass circulation newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, published on its Ynet website on 1 January 2025.

She admits that Israel has little evidence against any specific individual.

Gez also concedes that the death penalty is unlikely to be applied, but her desire for executions even of those she accuses of picking fruits (planted on land stolen from Palestinians by Israeli colonists), is a good indication of the quality of the “justice” Palestinians can expect in Israel.

As Ynet puts it: “The biggest difficulty is evidentiary, Gez explains. Using evidence to link a specific crime to a specific defendant when dealing with dozens of crime scenes, where hundreds of suspects were caught and thousands of offenses were committed, is almost impossible.”

But her claim that there is just too much evidence to be sorted out appears to be spin aimed at obfuscating that in many circumstances the evidence might not be there at all.

“The ordinary laws of evidence are not suitable in this case. There are no organized chains of evidence, there is no one who filmed the videos you would want to present in court,” Gez admitted.
Atrocity propaganda and genocidal incitement

Almost from the first hours of 7 October, Israel and its supporters spread claims about mass rapes of Israelis and other atrocities by Palestinian fighters.

But investigations by The Electronic Intifada and other independent publications have consistently demonstrated that the rape claims are unsubstantiated or outright fabrications – atrocity propaganda used to incite and justify Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Political leaders in countries actively arming the genocide, such as the Biden-Harris administration in the US, have spread the rape atrocity propaganda as part of their support for the Israeli extermination campaign.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has falsely claimed that members of Hamas made videos of themselves raping Israelis.

Scholz’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock went even further, claiming she personally viewed these nonexistent videos.

When German government officials are challenged about these lies, they simply smear and silence the journalists asking questions.
No rape victims

In her Ynet interview, Gez confirms that 15 months after the events, Israel still has not identified a single victim in which a prosecution can be brought against an alleged perpetrator of a sexual attack.

“Unfortunately, it will be very difficult to prove these crimes,” Gez said.

“In the end, we have no complainants,” Gez admitted, noting the vast gap between public perceptions and factual reality.

“Comparing what was presented in the media to what will come together in the end, it will be altogether different,” Gez said, offering the usual spin that this is “Either because the victims were murdered or because women who were raped are not ready to reveal it.”

But this frequent excuse for why no victims have been identified cannot account for the total lack of forensic, visual or credible eyewitness evidence, especially when the sexual attacks were supposedly so widespread on 7 October.

And this is not for lack of trying to find victims.

“We turned to women’s rights groups and we asked for cooperation,” Gez stated. “They told us that they were simply not approached” – in other words no one came forward.

This corroborates the experience of The New York Times which extensively canvassed Israeli hospitals, rape crisis centers, sexual assault hotlines and other specialized facilities, and could not find a single victim of a 7 October sexual attack.

“No one had met a victim of sexual assault,” Anat Schwartz, the reporter who did the research for the Times, explained in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 last year.

Despite this, Schwartz, as part of a New York Times team led by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, went on to publish the notorious article “Screams without words” in December 2023, supposedly corroborating the mass rapes.

That journalistic fraud quickly fell apart, engulfing the supposed newspaper of record in scandal.

And notably, when the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants against senior Hamas leaders last May, he did not include any allegations of rape on 7 October 2023.

This is a strong indication that the court’s investigators could not substantiate them either (although Khan did include tenuous allegations that Israeli prisoners of war and civilians held in Gaza since 7 October have been subjected to sexual violence).

Two separate UN reports could not verify any of Israel’s 7 October rape claims, finding in the extensive materials they reviewed, including thousands of photographs and videos, that there were “no tangible indications of rape” as well as an “absence of forensic evidence of sexual crimes.”

They did assert that there is evidence of sexual violence on 7 October, albeit using expansive, vague and shifting definitions of “sexual and gender-based violence.”

Both UN reports also affirmatively debunked a number of high-profile Israeli claims about 7 October sexual attacks.

One UN report states that several Israeli claims of sexual or gender-based violence on 7 October, including the widely reported cutting of a fetus from its mother’s womb, proved to be “unfounded.”

The second report also acknowledged that some specific allegations of sexual violence were determined to be “false, inaccurate or contradictory.”
“Lower expectations”

Contrast Gez’s claim that no Israeli rape victims have been found because they are either dead or “not ready to reveal it” with the situation of Palestinians detained by Israel since 7 October 2023.

Palestinians would presumably be no less reluctant or ashamed than Israelis to come forward as victims of rape or sexual assault.

And yet since 7 October, Palestinians have given multiple firsthand victim and eyewitness accounts of sexual violence and rape by Israeli personnel.

Israel’s well-documented and systemic sexual violence and torture against Palestinians – including at least one case of a detainee being subjected to a horrific gang rape and torture that was partially caught on video at the secretive Sde Teiman concentration camp – have however not garnered a fraction of the outrage and concern as the unverified, evidence-free claims of Israelis being raped.

As for those rape claims, Gez recounts to Ynet late nights poring over materials such as “testimonies from ZAKA, the rabbinate and the girls who washed bodies.”

What she does not say she read are any forensic evidence or pathology reports confirming signs of sexual violence.

As is now well known, ZAKA is the Jewish extremist group founded and run for decades by a serial child rapist, that collects bodies from disaster sites for burial. Its volunteers have no medical training and it is not an organization with any expertise in crime scene investigation or forensics.

ZAKA’s leaders and members played a key role in fabricating and spreading 7 October atrocity propaganda, including subsequently debunked claims about rapes and beheaded babies.

Conceding the lack of solid evidence for the inflammatory rape claims, Gez advises that: “In this matter, I would lower expectations.”

“I know that the public has expectations and I understand the need to relate to the sex crimes and the horrific sex attacks that took place, but the overwhelming majority cannot meet the threshold of proof in court,” the prosecutor said.

Still, Gez is not willing to subordinate her desire for retribution to a lack of evidence, admitting that legislation will need to be changed, presumably to do away with the need for evidence. But that would only help in the future.

She also wants to see a return to the use of military courts for Palestinians from Gaza, similar to the ones still used against Palestinians in the West Bank, where Palestinians are presumed guilty and the conviction rate is effectively 100 percent.
No confessions

For cases arising from the events of 7 October, Gez affirms that “In the end, you need a confession.”

But here too, Israel has drawn a blank, according to the prosecutor.

“Surprisingly, in the interrogations of these terrorists, they try to minimize the nationalistic aspect,” Gez said. “From my experience in security cases, most terrorists are very proud of what they did and do not hide it.”

At most, according to Gez, detainees have only admitted to actions such as firing shots but not hitting anyone.

“That’s not how I’m used to seeing terrorists,” she asserted, calling Palestinians detained on 7 October “cowards” for failing to confess to the kind of lurid crimes for which she seeks revenge.

Of course what she doesn’t consider is that many Palestinian detainees swept up into Israel’s secretive network of prisons and torture camps did not carry out the acts they are accused of, or that they are falsely confessing to relatively minor actions in the hope of ending or avoiding Israel’s systematic torture.

As of this writing, Gez’s damning statements have appeared only in Hebrew and behind a paywall, and are likely intended to pander to the bloodlust of an Israeli audience.

It is important that they be brought to global attention as they underscore once again that claims that Israel has a functioning and fair judicial system, at least as far as Palestinians are concerned, are nothing more than transparent lies.

David Sheen contributed translation.

US State Department silent on Gaza  hospital director’s disappearance


Michael F. Brown

Rights and Accountability 

4 January 2025

ELECTRONIC INFTADA EI

Medical professionals around the world, including in this Barcelona demonstration, have called for Israel to free Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Marc Asensio ClupesZUMAPRESS

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya and lead physician for MedGlobal in Gaza, has been disappeared into the Israeli prison system by US-funded Israeli death squads operating in the occupied coastal territory. These Israeli forces have killed over 46,000 Palestinians since October 2023, approximately 17,000 of them children.

The famed and widely respected pediatrician was seized on 27 December and, say witnesses, showed “signs of having undergone torture and beatings.” Abu Safiya’s family said he had been subjected to “humiliation and mistreatment.”

Israel stands plausibly accused of genocide and two leaders – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant – have been issued with arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes. There is good reason for concern for Abu Safiya.

No official news has emerged as to Abu Safiya’s whereabouts since his initial arrest and transfer for “questioning.”

Eyewitness reports, however, placed Abu Safiya at the notorious Sde Teiman torture facility. Yet inept Israeli officials denied any knowledge of his detention according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel on Thursday.

Israel’s apartheid army reversed its claim of not knowing about his detention the next day.

The US State Department disregarded specific questions about the physical well-being of Abu Safiya from The Electronic Intifada and instead on Monday responded with generalities that never named the doctor. A State Department spokesperson merely noted, “We are aware of reports and still gathering information.”

Against all evidence to the contrary, that spokesperson added: “We do not want to see firefights in hospitals where innocent people and patients receiving medical care are caught in the crossfire.”

Citing “consultations” with the Israeli military on the matter, the spokesperson added, “We call on all parties of the conflict to respect the protected status of these facilities and to avoid harm to civilians receiving treatment and humanitarian workers providing that care.”

“Bombs away”

Florida state senator and US congressional candidate Randy Fine, who is expected to represent his district in the US House of Representatives later this year and is endorsed by president-elect Donald Trump, enthusiastically backs such violence.

His view is sadistic, but honest.

Fine tweeted “bombs away” after unsubstantiated allegations emerged of Abu Safiya being a Hamas colonel. It was unclear whether Fine meant to bomb Abu Safiya (though already detained), what remains of his hospital, or all of Gaza.

Fine, the self-described “Hebrew Hammer,” has directed similarly violent rhetoric at Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, his likely future colleagues and the only two Muslim women in the US Congress. His vile and racist wording is reminiscent of the ethnic cleansing language employed by Israeli politicians against Palestinians in Gaza.

The allegation against Abu Safiya is particularly odd as the Israeli military briefly detained the hospital director in October, only to release him after assaulting him and interrogating him for hours. Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard notes that he was also “interrogated briefly” in December 2023. “At the time, not a single Israeli source accused Dr. Hussam of anything.”

On Thursday she warned that Abu Safiya should now be regarded as “enforced disappeared, and as such at great risk of torture and ill-treatment.”

Now, with his stature having grown in recent months on account of courageous steadfastness on behalf of his patients, the Israeli military is charging that he’s “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.”

Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, insisted, “We must not abandon Dr. Abu Safiya.” He raised up Abu Safiya as “the man who stayed with his patients until the very last moment,” while warning of “harsh detention conditions, reports of widespread torture, and dozens of deaths in custody, including Dr. Adnan al-Bursh earlier this year.”

The State Department spokesperson, rather than address anything to do with Abu Safiya, his well-being or the Israeli claims, offered empty words about remaining “deeply concerned with the scale of civilian casualties in this conflict.” The spokesperson urged that “all parties must not only comply with international humanitarian law but must take all feasible precautions to protect civilians.”

Yet the Biden administration continues to fund the Israeli military as it engages in the violent targeting of hospitals and tent encampments in Gaza.

Despite the ongoing military assistance to Israel, the spokesperson maintains, “We have consistently urged Israel at the highest levels that they must do significantly more to ensure the protection of civilians, and that they must investigate credible allegations of violations whenever they arise.”

Do better, the American message seems to be, but by all means take more US weapons and do more of the same.

The spokesperson concluded with the standard US government talking point: “Israel has an unusual burden in fighting this war because Hamas uses hospitals and schools and other civilian facilities for military purposes and has built a vast network of military tunnels under civilian areas. That puts innocent civilians in the crossfire. That creates an added burden for Israel, but it does not lessen Israel’s responsibility under international humanitarian law, to distinguish between terrorists and civilians, and to protect the lives of innocent people, and that is the overwhelming majority of the people in Gaza. Israel has a responsibility to do everything in its power to protect civilians.”

This assertion about hospitals is belied by the reporting of The Washington Post regarding the claims Israeli officials made about al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City being a command and control center. That debunking article noted “the evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center.”
UN concerns about hospitals

The UN Human Rights Office raised serious concerns about Israel’s actions against hospitals in a report released Tuesday. The report “found that Israel’s pattern of deadly attacks on and near hospitals in Gaza, and associated combat, pushed the healthcare system to the brink of total collapse, with catastrophic effect on Palestinians’ access to health and medical care.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk added, “This report graphically details the destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, and the extent of killing of patients, staff and other civilians in these attacks in blatant disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law.”

The UN Human Rights Office also raised concerns in its press release about Israel’s actions at Kamal Adwan hospital, though that assault and forced evacuation took place after the time period of 12 October 2023 to 30 June 2024 studied in the report.

“The appalling destruction wrought by the Israeli military’s attacks on the Kamal Adwan hospital last Friday [27 December] – leaving the population of north Gaza with almost no access to adequate health care – reflects the pattern of attacks documented in the report. Staff and patients were forced to flee or were taken into custody, with many reports of torture and ill-treatment. The director of the hospital was taken into custody and his fate and whereabouts are unknown.”

Tlaleng Mofokeng, UN special rapporteur on the right to health, and Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, said on 2 January: “We are gravely concerned with the fate of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, yet another doctor to be harassed, kidnapped and arbitrarily detained by the occupation forces, in his case for defying evacuation orders to leave his patients and colleagues behind. This is part of a pattern by Israel to continuously bombard, destroy and fully annihilate the realization of the right to health in Gaza.”

The concern for Abu Safiya is widespread with medical professionals from around the world taking up his cause on social media and demanding his freedom.

A follow-up question Thursday from The Electronic Intifada regarding the well-being of Abu Safiya went completely unanswered by the State Department.