Israel/Palestine Thread

No charges filed against courageous Dr Abu Safiya, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in the Gaza Strip. No trial. Denial of his medications.

“Israeli court extends detention of Gaza hospital director Abu Safiya ‘without charges’
“Israeli rights group says Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya held in ‘harsh conditions’ without medication or treatment”
Lina Altawell, 28 April 2026
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-court-extends-detention-of-gaza-hospital-director-abu-safiya-without-charges-/3920641

“Dr. Abu Safiya had been tirelessly running the hospital, providing essential care to children and bearing witness to the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare sector under Israel’s genocide.

“He continued his work even after the tragic death of his own son during an Israeli airstrike. Like many health workers before him, he was detained while caring for his patients and carrying out his medical duties,” Amnesty International said in an earlier report.

^ It’s an iconic image where paediatrician and the Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital Dr Hussam Abu Safiya walks alone (wearing his white medical coat) to the IDF tank in Northern Gaza. At the time he was apprehended, we heard audio where Dr Hussam calmly introduces himself to his IDF captors inside the tank - unavailable in this short.

They are doing it Sean, you think all the Palestinian prisoners who have been raped by dogs are lying about being raped by dogs? The military did the same thing during the Pinochet regime, is stating that "blood libel" too? The level of callousness you display in your posts is utterly unbelievable at times. I would post some links but you'll just causally dismiss them as "blood lible" and probably call me an anti-Semite.

@Dmcdona, I went off to have a cuppa and realised that the effects of An Gorta Mor are still intergenerational in my family. and I'm carrying it in my psyche; and have probably passed it on. I wanted to mention this afterthought.

Yes they're lying. It's anatomically impossible for dogs to anally rape a human, and almost impossible even for non consensual vaginal penetration. There have been a tiny number of such allegations in the past (well, one under the Chilean dictatorship, and one in Nazi Germany), but it turns out that careful reading of the interviews about Inge Olderock on which that allegation is based don't say that penetration took place, it was the humiliation of being "mounted" that was the point.

The first problem with these claims is why neither the NYT nor any other major outlet has treated it as a news story. It remains "opinion journalism," as the NYT itself admits. Because it's opinion, not investigation. Yet you're presenting it as fact.

One of the key sources, Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, has already walked back the central claim on Piers Morgan's show. It is no longer "penetration" on command. Now he says: "the detainee sort of exposed and having a dog sort of seemed like it was about mounting… Whether there’s been penetration or not, I don’t know if there has been or hasn’t." Even this is still unverified, but it is very different from "Israel trained dogs to rape".

Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert contradicts Kristof’s claim that he accepted the article’s allegations. Olmert says he was duped into endorsing a narrative he did not accept as true. So the most easily checkable testimony in the piece was misrepresented, but we are supposed to trust the testimony of mainly unnamed persons that of course cannot be fact-checked.

After days of international discussion, millions of views, and endless comments, not one dog expert has come forward to confirm that a dog can be trained on command to become aroused and penetrate a human anally. All so far have called the claim absurd and anatomically impossible. The NYT claims the story was carefully fact-checked but did not produce an expert to back the claim.

The actual Chile testimony by a victim (not articles and opinion pieces about the incident) regarding Ingrid Olderock and her dog Volodia says the dog was ordered to "climb on top of me." One naked victim specifically said, "mercifully, there was NO PENETRATION." None of the testimony establishes penetration, just mounting and general assault on naked victims.

The Klaus Barbie testimony specifically says: "Barbie kept two German shepherd dogs. One was trained to lunge and bite. The other was trained to mount naked women who had first been ordered on their hands and knees." Again, no penetration is claimed - because that is not possible.

Connections have been established between Euro-Med Monitor, the ultimate source for this story and Hamas. "Journalist" Sami al-Sai also a proven Hamas mouthpiece. Ultimately the entire "opinion" piece is a form of well-laundered "Hamas told me so."

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380778561_Ingrid_Olderock_and_Her_Torturing_Dogs_On_Commanders

The Palestinian detainees stories have also changed over time, with dogs being a later addition:

And since they're lying about that, what else are they lying about? And you're determined to believe it because (reasons that are not antisemitic at all). It's the George Orwell quote that "one of the marks of antisemitism is an ability to believe stories that could not possibly be true", yet again.

You're hilarious. You believe claims that are impossible because they're against Da joos, and when that's proven to be lies you just wave that away.

I don't know whether any of the allegations are true, and neither do you. I will point out - yet again - that there has been no war where soldiers didn't commit abuses so I expect that some of them are. What I don't think though is that those abuses necessarily put Israel on the "wrong" side, as you seem to think. They do need to be punished (about the 10th time I've said this) but that doesn't change the fact that Hamas began this on Oct 7th.

Do you have any comment to make about the report I linked to above, of a Palestinian filing a complaint against Hamas for deaths and injuries to his family since Oct 7th? And about the "disappearance" of other Gazans who have previously openly blamed Hamas for this? Or for that matter to the fact that such a disappointingly small crowd of Gazans turned out for Izz al-Din al-Haddad's funeral?

Hamas are responsible, and yet Irish people are out waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags in the streets of Dublin. Any comment on that?

Starry Plough and I "know" each other from previous fora, albeit I had a different user name. Hence my comment to her.

But being from a nationalist part of NI is something I've mentioned several times on here too.