The Americans understand the importance of Israel’s victory over Hamas in Gaza, but their stated desire to avoid getting dragged into a regional war and have Israel end major combat operations even before completing the takeover of the entire strip encourages Iran and its proxies to continue gradually escalating their use of force, in the hope that the administration will stop Israel.
By Yossi Kuperwasser
A decisive victory in the complex campaign against Iran and its proxies requires a clear outcome in Gaza, as well as Israeli unity. The multi-front war – with Iran and its proxies, chiefly Hamas, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood (Qatar, Turkey, and their supporters worldwide) on the one hand, and Israel, the US, and parts of Western support on the other hand – has been going on for close to three months now. Each front has its own unique characteristics, derived from how the war began, the considerations of the actors involved, and their capabilities.
According to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israel is fighting on seven fronts (Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, Yemen, Iraq, and Iran), but in practice, the world stage forms another arena, and this is where Israel is fighting to maintain American backing as well as for the legitimacy of its actions and existence, and against antisemitism.
Ending the major combat operations before this goal is achieved just because we’ve reached a predetermined point in time (end of January?) will allow Hamas to claim that it forced Israel to effectively change its war goals in practice, and will encourage supporters of the terrorist organization who set themselves the goal of ensuring Hamas’ survival in Gaza, even if only in a small part of its territory. As long as Hamas controls the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing and is perceived by the population as a governing entity, it would be able to claim it had managed to survive, and by implication – won.
It is also important to drive home the message – in talks with the US – that defeating Hamas requires creating a reality in the strip that will not allow terrorists to rear their heads. Therefore, not only Hamas but also the weak and corrupt Palestinian Authority is unsuitable to take over responsibility for Gaza post-war: It remains committed to the armed conflict against Israel, encourages terror (through incitement and payment of salaries to imprisoned terrorists), and sees Hamas as a legitimate organization that should be part of the leadership.
This is not a war of choice; it has been forced upon Israel, and which began under extremely difficult opening conditions. And for that very reason, both Israel and the US must end it in victory. Achieving this requires several conditions. The first and most important is a clear defeat of Hamas in Gaza and the release of the captives. This means Israeli control at the end of high-intensity fighting over the entire area, including Rafah and the Philadelphi Route (excluding perhaps international management of displaced persons in secured areas designated to ensure the safety of the population during the mopping-up stage, which will likely last several months).
Gaining control over the entire area will also give Israel the necessary leverage to release the captives. As long as Hamas is not convinced that Israel is determined to eliminate its presence in Gaza, it has no interest in giving up its main asset, other than in return for an Israeli commitment to refrain from completing the takeover of the strip.
The second condition is reaching an understanding with the American administration that this is the US war almost to the same extent as it is Israel’s: Continuation of the current state of affairs on all fronts will damage its standing in the region and globally, and exacerbate threats to the security of American citizens and Washington’s interests. The Americans understand the importance of Israel’s victory over Hamas in Gaza, but their stated desire to avoid getting dragged into a regional war and have Israel end major combat operations even before completing the takeover of the entire strip encourages Iran and its proxies to continue gradually escalating their use of force, in the hope that the administration will stop Israel.
Defeating Hamas and convincing the US that this is also a war over the regional and global order – and translating this into a willingness to win – are key in the effort to exert diplomatic pressure on Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the pro-Iranian militias, and for effective military force against them if necessary.
This is the condition to create a new security reality along the northern border that will give residents a sense of security and allow them to return home; this is the condition to secure shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb strait; this is the condition to curb Iran’s nuclear program, which has again accelerated during the war; and this is the condition to promote efforts to establish a pragmatic regional center of gravity with normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia at its core. Israel and the US need each other in these arenas, and Israel must dive home this interdependence and mutual benefit to ensure Washington’s commitment to achieving common goals.
Israel’s ability to meet the two conditions for victory will be greatly impacted by its ability to shake off the self-induced blindness that characterized its attitude towards its enemies’ intentions and display internal unity. This is not only the clear message communicated by the troops and the fallen, but also a strategic imperative. The greater and clearer the unity, the easier it will be for Israel to harness its capabilities and American support in order to achieve its war aims.
The combat arena: The IDF forces continued their integrated ground maneuver in the Gaza
Strip focusing on the Daraj-Tufah neighborhoods in Gaza City and Khan Yunis in the southern
Gaza Strip, while the fighting continued against terrorist centers in the northern and central
Gaza Strip. Senior Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists continue to claim that
they have the upper hand in the fighting with the IDF.
The Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research appears at the Israel Knesset 3pm to 5pm Israel time on Thursday, January 4th, invited by the Knesset Foreign Relations and Security committee to screen our movies which show how UNRWA trains armed UNRWA students in guerrilla warfare– towards the planned event on Oct. 7 2023- under the guise of innocuous summer camps along the Gaza fence, filmed by our TV crews based in Gaza.
A picture taken on August 5, 2022, shows Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza City in retaliation to earlier Israeli air strikes. - A senior militant from Islamic Jihad was killed in an Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip today, prompting the militant group to warn Israel has "started a war".A child was among those killed in the strikes, the enclave's health ministry said, while Israel's military estimated 15 were dead. (Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)
January 3, 2024
There are so many instances of distortion in the media that present a false, negative picture of Israel that I could easily write a book on the subject.
But I want to focus here on the charges of “settler violence,” which are both fallacious and damaging.
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Many, if not most, of the charges of “settler violence” originated with agencies and organizations (either outside of Israel or receiving funds from sources outside of Israel) that are strongly predisposed against Israel:
One example among several is B’Tselem, registered as an Israeli NGO but funded to a significant degree by the EU, Sweden, New Israel Fund, Norway, the Ford Foundation and other (left-wing) non-Israeli sources. Representing itself as a “human rights organization,” it pursues a blatantly political agenda.
According to NGO Monitor, “B’Tselem is part of a network of NGOs that promote artificial and manufactured definitions of apartheid to extend the ongoing campaigns that seek to delegitimize and demonize Israel.” (Emphasis added)
In 2020-2021, B’Tselem received funding from the EU for information on settler violence in Israel.
In 2021, B’Tselem wrote: “Settler violence against Palestinians is part of the strategy employed by Israel’s apartheid regime, which seeks to take over more and more West Bank land.”
https://www.btselem.org/settler_violence
This charge is ludicrous, as it is Palestinian Arabs who have been illegally usurping Israeli land in Area C.
For more on this see: https://www.regavim.org/category/battle-for-area-c/
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And then there is the UN, which is strongly predisposed against Israel. OHCHR – the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – released a report just over a year ago that included this:
“Armed and masked Israeli settlers are attacking Palestinians in their homes, attacking children on their way to school, destroying property and burning olive groves, and terrorising entire communities with complete impunity.”
OHCHR cites three “experts” who provided the information on “settler violence.” The very first one of those listed is “Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967.”
Albanese recently defended the Hamas massacre, distorting the facts in the process:
Previously, she had spoken in defense of Palestinian Arab violence: “an occupation requires violence and generates violence. Palestinians have no other room for dissent than violence.”
It makes a mockery of the entire report, that OHCHR relied upon the “expertise” of this biased woman with regard to charges of “settler violence.”
Lucas Koch AAP
Lucas Koch/AAP
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Charges made by these anti-Israel sources and others – notably Breaking the Silence, which receives foreign funding and worked with B’Tselem on its report on “settler violence” – have been picked up more broadly by mainstream media sources, many of which tilt against Israel as a matter of course. They have been shared in so many venues that they have become accepted as “fact.” But they are not fact.
Unfortunately, Joe Biden has chosen to take on this issue. Not only has he spoken about the problem of “settler violence,” the US government is acting in response to this alleged violence.
In early December, the Biden administration announced intention to implement visa bans on Israelis viewed as “extremist settlers” in the West Bank (that is, Judea & Samaria).
“State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller (pictured) said the U.S. is in the process of sanctioning people…
“Under the policy, any Israeli citizen deemed to be committing acts of violence or undermining peace and security in the West Bank, particularly against Palestinians, will be banned from entering the U.S.”
This is a terribly wrong-headed policy, obviously political in its underpinning.
We might note, first, that this visa ban is directed against Jews selectively. A policy that was equitable would require that Palestinian Arabs living in Judea & Samaria would also be banned from entering the US if they committed acts of violence against Jews or undermined peace. But then again, if it were applied equitably, no one representing the PA, which pays terrorists and their families (surely an act that undermines peace), would be permitted into the US. And that would never do.
What is more, the identification of those to be banned is too general, too broad. What does it mean to “undermine peace” and precisely who will determine who these individuals allegedly doing so are?
Use of the term “deemed” is problematic. To “deem” is to believe or consider. No concrete proof will be required?
Those who in the end will be denied visas are small in number – Miller acknowledged as much in his announcement. They are not going to be denied entry into the US because they present a danger or are enemies of the US, but rather because of the political statements the US seeks to make.
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We come then to the question of precisely what political statements.
Politico
Politico
Biden is attempting to show progressives/leftists in the electorate that he can be tough on Israel. Why did he charge that Israel was doing ”indiscriminate” bombing in Gaza when he had to know better? It is of a piece, I believe, as he enters an election year.
Part of what he is doing is adopting a position of moral equivalency: Yea, yea, the Palestinian Arabs do some bad stuff, but look at what the Jews are doing. But don’t worry, he will deal with them.
And yet, there is something else going on that is even more significant.
Biden is pushing hard for that “two-state-solution.” This requires, in his fantasies, a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank. And that means that Palestinian Arabs must control most – if not all – of Judea & Samaria. For that to happen, the Jews living in that area must be delegitimized. “Settlers” is a derisive term, in this context.
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David Weinberg, a senior fellow at The Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, has a slightly different take:
“Essentially, this is an effort to limit sympathy for Israel and to backhandedly excuse Hamas atrocities…
“To the Biden administration I say: Stop throwing ‘settler violence’ in Israel’s face as it fights for its very life against the genocidal Hamas. At best, this is a red herring issue. At worst, it is an ugly attempt to discredit the righteousness of Israel’s war effort.” (Emphasis added)
Before we look at some of the data, I wish to make a point about the definition of “violence.” If every incident on the Israeli side, regardless of its severity, is calculated as being equivalent to every incident on the Arab side, a distortion of the reality will take place. There is a small number of hilltop youth in Judea & Samaria who have been prone to doing “price tag” attacks (although such attacks are fewer in number these days). Much of the time this involved vandalism. Not acceptable, not to be excused. But neither is it to be equated – incident to incident – with Arab attacks that maim or take life.
This entire issue of charging Jews with violence against Arabs is very deeply disturbing when – even before the massacre of October 7 – we were dealing with frequent terror attacks that killed innocent Jews. (More on this below.)
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Another problem in securing accurate data is the question of what is identified as a “settler attack.”
Ariel Kahana (pictured below), writing in Israel Hayom at the end of December, looks at some problematic instances:
According to the police, the agency that is officially tasked with collecting the data, there were instances in which rapid response teams in settlements were involved in incidents that were believed to be “settler violence.” On high alert following the Hamas attack, they tended to respond aggressively. The IDF erroneously identified these incidents as “settler violence,” but have now adjusted their data to conform with that of the police.
The police argue that the IDF method of counting incidents was inaccurate, and has damaged Israel’s international image.
According to the commander of the Israel Police Judea and Samaria District, Uzi Levy, following discussions with settler leaders, IDF Major General Fox had been misled by “extremist left-wing anarchists who have been deliberately creating friction so that the Arabs clash with settlers, and ultimately lay the blame on the settlers – but in many cases they are the ones causing the incidents.”
The police and the IDF have now adjusted data so that it is synchronized. The data indicates that during the second month of the Gaza war, there was a significant decline in what has been termed “nationalistic incidents” perpetrated by Israelis in the West Bank.
According to police data, this is the second consecutive month with a decline of about 50% in incidents compared to the equivalent period in 2022. This amounts to about 50 incidents on average per month, compared to a figure twice the size during the same months in 2022.
“Fox says in closed briefings that ‘99.9% of the half a million residents of the West Bank are normative law-abiding citizens, many of whom are currently being called into the Gaza war effort,’ and has also emphasized that the violent individuals are ’a handful of felons.’”
On Sunday, 23 MKs, all members of Israel’s Knesset and the Knesset Caucus to Combat Antisemitism and Delegitimization, wrote a letter to President Biden. The letter was initiated by the chairman of the lobby, MK Ariel Kallner (Likud), who calls the charges a “modern blood libel.”
Kellner laments a disproportionate focus on settlers that all but ignores the innate hatred toward Jews across Palestinian society: “This blood libel needs to be cut off at the root. The Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria have for years been subject to violent attacks by an Arab society that largely also supports the October 7 events.”
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I cite David Weinberg above and provide his comments from another article of his here. The issue is the threat to many Israeli communities, including those in Judea & Samaria, of attack by Palestinian Arabs (emphasis added):
“Most stark of all is the threat of Palestinian swarm attacks on settlement communities in Judea and Samaria and on cities straddling the Green Line in the center of the country like those in the Emek Hefer region. This is not an imaginary scenario. It is a clear and present danger…
“In the nine weeks since Hamas launched its cross-border attack from the Gaza Strip, there have been 1,388 Palestinian terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria, including 569 stoning assaults, 287 attacks with explosives, 143 fire-bombings, and 70 drive-by shooting attacks. Three Israelis (a civilian, a soldier, and a Border Police officer) have been murdered in Judea and Samaria since October 7 and at least 52 Israelis sustained injuries.”
Read this in its entirety. It is blood-curdling. The suggestion from the world community that “the problem” is “settler violence” is enraging.
“The Biden administration is blocking a shipment of more than 27,000 US-made rifles for the Israel Police out of fear they could make their way into the hands of ‘extremist Israeli settlers,’ US officials said.
“Three cases of firearms, including M-16 and M-4 rifles, have been waiting for the State Department’s required approval and notification to Congress for more than a month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“The Biden administration told the Israeli government this month that it won’t transfer the rifles until they’ve received sufficient assurances from Israel that the guns will only be used by police, the officials said.”
Please, it is urgent that this information be shared broadly. Use it to refute the libel and alert people to the real dangers.
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The Beautiful People of Israel story of the day:
In a manner that is true of no other fighting force in the world, the IDF is concerned with reassuring the mothers of their soldiers. Those who are fighting in Gaza are not able to use their cell phones, and their mothers can go many days without word. Sometimes commanders message them to say that their sons are well.
Recently, someone I am close to, the mother of two young soldiers in Gaza, received a message from the commander of one of her sons. He is well, the commander told her. If she wanted to bake cookies for him and get them to a designated delivery point a distance away (outside of Gaza) by the following morning, they would be brought to her son.
She received the message at night and knew it was impossible, as she had no car, to get it to the delivery point by designated time in the morning. When she told this to the commander, he assured her she should not worry. He charged someone at the designated delivery point with buying some cookies for this woman’s son, which would be carried into Gaza with other cookies. Later in the day, she received a picture from the commander of her son enjoying the cookies.
Where else?
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Keep praying to Heaven for Israel, my friends. Pray for the strength and wisdom of our leaders, for the safety of our boys, and for the rescue of our hostages. Pray with a heart filled with hope.
As the world switches over to the year 2024 in the civil calendar, those who are still sober will be aware that major pitfalls lie ahead.
Instead of old problems having been solved and dealt with, as 2023 is seen off, the challenges that have been either kicked down the road or swept under the carpet are guaranteed to confront humanity with a vengeance.
The primary casualty in the year ahead will be peace.
In the absence of any will to deal with the old year’s primary sources of instability and mayhem in the world, the accumulated pressures will explode in our faces. That is the uncomfortable yet incontrovertible truth. Evil, left to fester and multiply will come back to menace all of us. The utter failure to root out and eradicate it and instead pretend that fancy rhetoric and moral cowardice may somehow solve the problem has repeatedly throughout history led to disasters and misery.
Jews have been described as the “canaries in the mine” because they usually are the first to suffer from the hate and incitement circulating in societies.
This can be clearly seen as we transition from the old to the new civil year. The long, littered trail of unresolved business is about to multiply and become more complex. It has the potential to engulf not only Jews in the Diaspora and Israel but also to contaminate all those living in endangered democracies.
Like diseases left untreated, the viruses now rampaging will mutate into incurable pandemics unless radical surgery and countermeasures are swiftly enforced.
The threats to peace, liberty and democracy remain the same.
In no particular order of malignancy they are clearly visible and growing more menacing as every day passes.
Iranian ambitions to acquire the means to threaten and destroy those they deem enemies have now progressed unhindered. Thanks to vacillating appeasement, craven hypocrisy and a collapse of all vestiges of morality, the Mullahs of Tehran stand on the cusp of acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Whether the failure by democratic nations to deter Iran involved circumventing trade sanctions, turning a blind eye to those who did so or unfreezing frozen funds the end result was the same.
The reaction of the international community has been one of total disinterest with each announcement of yet another missile development and revelation that enriching uranium had passed a previous red line. The Iranians, like the North Koreans, know that they can literally get away with murder without any fear of UN retribution. These two rogue regimes can threaten their neighbours with elimination yet remain upstanding members of an organization ostensibly established to preserve world peace and human rights.
Piracy has returned with a vengeance in the Red Sea and beyond. Everyone knows that those pulling the Houthi puppet strings are none other than the Iranian puppet masters. Piracy on the high seas can only be defeated by concerted action from maritime nations yet so far it has been a struggle to cobble together a coalition. The question, of course, is what will actually happen? Will the tin pot country of Yemen, with Iranian support, continue to get away with threatening shipping? Will this coalition actually tackle the threats or will it be more of a verbal volley and a slap on the wrist type response?
In 1967, Israel was assured by the USA that they and a coalition of nations would guarantee freedom of shipping in the Gulf of Aqaba. When it came to the crunch, however, this guarantee disappeared like a desert mirage and Israel was left to deal with the threat alone. Will 2024 see a rerun of this scenario as a loss of backbone results in the terror sponsors of Tehran being given a free pass?
The year now passing into oblivion witnessed the most scandalous exhibition of international duplicity ever perpetrated. The United Nations and its associated bodies demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have become irredeemably irrelevant as far as Israel is concerned. Evidence uncovered in Gaza reveals that Hamas and UNRWA are partners in terror and educating the next generation to become terrorists. The UN Human Rights Council has been hijacked by human rights abusers and UNESCO has helped to delegitimize Jewish history.
The UN General Assembly annual resolution scorecard has just been released, and it shows a continuing and unbridled fetish with condemning Israel. It is impossible to deny the evidence as provided by UN Watch: North Korea – 1; Venezuela – 0; Myanmar – 1; Lebanon – 0; Pakistan – 0; Hamas – 0; Turkey – 0; Russia – 2;
China – 0; Qatar – 0; Saudi Arabia – 0; Syria – 1; Iraq – 0; Iran – 1;
USA – 1; ISRAEL – 14.
The Security Council record for 2023 is no better.
The pattern for 2024 will be just as bad, if not worse. One has to ask how much longer Israel should subject itself to continuing flagellation by an organization so obviously corrupt and irrelevant.
The International Red Cross has proven once again that it has zero interest when it comes to Jews. Continuing a pattern set during the Shoah years when it failed dismally, its recent refusal to demand access to hostages held by Hamas and even refusing to transfer medications to them is shameful.
Palestine Media Watch (PMW) has revealed that the PA has advised incarcerated terrorists and their families that in order to continue receiving stipends and pensions for 2024 they will need to submit the relevant forms via the International Red Cross.
All this brings us to the question of why Abbas and his PA/PLO/Fatah cronies should be rewarded with a State in the heartland of Israel.
There is nothing more certain that 2024 will witness a renewed frenzy to hand over Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to terror plotters, supporters, facilitators and sympathizers.
The frenzied mobs of university ignoramuses, green lemmings, Marxist-imbued hallucinatory youth combined with locally radicalized Islamists have only started. Disrupting Christmas carols and tree lighting is just the start. They have declared war on Christian and Western societies. Inciting rhetoric and civil disruptions will inevitably be followed by physical violence.
The genie of Jew hate has already been let loose and the coming year will witness an intensification unseen since the Shoah years. Surveys taken in various countries show that, especially among 18 to 30-year-olds, the Shoah is being increasingly questioned and Jews are increasingly being seen as justifiable recipients of the masses’ wrath. One has to wonder how much eradicating history as a subject and the promotion of woke narratives has contributed towards this wholesale brainwashing.
The Israeli campaign against terror will need to intensify in 2024 and it will inevitably result in increased threats to Jewish life in countries where Judeophobia already bubbles just below the surface. Living in la la land is no longer a tenable option, especially when the warning signs are so clearly evident.
If all this sounds overly pessimistic, I plead guilty.
Short of an imminent arrival of the messianic age I am afraid that we will have to reconcile ourselves to another very difficult year ahead.
Denial of reality and escaping into a make-believe world where the lion is already lying down with the lamb is not a realistic option as far as Jews are concerned.
Let us hope at least for a healthy year and one in which the purveyors of evil are defeated.
At first, she was known simply as “the woman in the black dress.”
In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition and her right hand covers her eyes.
The video was shot in the early hours of Oct. 8 by a woman searching for a missing friend at the site of the rave in southern Israel where, the day before, Hamas terrorists massacred hundreds of young Israelis.
The video went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress was their missing friend, sister or daughter.
One family knew exactly who she was — Gal Abdush, mother of two from a working-class town in central Israel, who disappeared from the rave that night with her husband.
As the terrorists closed in on her, trapped on a highway in a line of cars of people trying to flee the party, she sent one final WhatsApp message to her family: “You don’t understand.”
Based largely on the video evidence — which was verified by The New York Times — Israeli police officials said they believed that Ms. Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks.
Israeli officials say that everywhere Hamas terrorists struck — the rave, the military bases along the Gaza border and the kibbutzim — they brutalized women.
A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.
Relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors, The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.
Four witnesses described in graphic detail seeing women raped and killed at two different places along Route 232, the same highway where Ms. Abdush’s half-naked body was found sprawled on the road at a third location.
And The Times interviewed several soldiers and volunteer medics who together described finding more than 30 bodies of women and girls in and around the rave site and in two kibbutzim in a similar state as Ms. Abdush’s — legs spread, clothes torn off, signs of abuse in their genital areas.
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A camp area on Oct. 11 at the rave site in southern Israel.Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times
Many of the accounts are difficult to bear, and the visual evidence is disturbing to see.
The Times viewed photographs of one woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin.
The Times also viewed a video, provided by the Israeli military, showing two dead Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who appeared to have been shot directly in their vaginas.
Investigators with Israel’s top national police unit, Lahav 433, have been steadily gathering evidence but they have not put a number on how many women were raped, saying that most are dead — and buried — and that they will never know. No survivors have spoken publicly.
The Israeli police have acknowledged that, during the shock and confusion of Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israeli history, they were not focused on collecting semen samples from women’s bodies, requesting autopsies or closely examining crime scenes. At that moment, the authorities said, they were intent on repelling Hamas and identifying the dead.
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Ms. Abdush’s sister showing one of the last messages Ms. Abdush sent on Oct. 7.
A combination of chaos, enormous grief and Jewish religious duties meant that many bodies were buried as quickly as possible. Most were never examined, and in some cases, like at the rave scene, where more than 360 people were slaughtered in a few hours, the bodies were hauled away by the truckload.
That has left the Israeli authorities at a loss to fully explain to families what happened to their loved ones in their final moments. Ms. Abdush’s relatives, for instance, never received a death certificate. They are still searching for answers.
In cases of widespread sexual violence during a war, it is not unusual to have limited forensic evidence, experts said.
“Armed conflict is so chaotic,” said Adil Haque, a Rutgers law professor and war crimes expert. “People are more focused on their safety than on building a criminal case down the road.”
Very often, he said, sex crime cases will be prosecuted years later on the basis of testimony from victims and witnesses.
“The eyewitness might not even know the name of the victim,” he added. “But if they can testify as, ‘I saw a woman being raped by this armed group,’ that can be enough.”
‘Screams without words’
Sapir, a 24-year-old accountant, has become one of the Israeli police’s key witnesses. She does not want to be fully identified, saying she would be hounded for the rest of her life if her last name were revealed.
She attended the rave with several friends and provided investigators with graphic testimony. She also spoke to The Times. In a two-hour interview outside a cafe in southern Israel, she recounted seeing groups of heavily armed gunmen rape and kill at least five women.
She said that at 8 a.m. on Oct. 7, she was hiding under the low branches of a bushy tamarisk tree, just off Route 232, about four miles southwest of the party. She had been shot in the back. She felt faint. She covered herself in dry grass and lay as still as she could.
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Volunteers with an emergency response team at the Kfar Aza kibbutz this month. The kibbutz was among the places attacked on Oct. 7.
About 15 meters from her hiding place, she said, she saw motorcycles, cars and trucks pulling up. She said that she saw “about 100 men,” most of them dressed in military fatigues and combat boots, a few in dark sweatsuits, getting in and out of the vehicles. She said the men congregated along the road and passed between them assault rifles, grenades, small missiles — and badly wounded women.
“It was like an assembly point,” she said.
The first victim she said she saw was a young woman with copper-color hair, blood running down her back, pants pushed down to her knees. One man pulled her by the hair and made her bend over. Another penetrated her, Sapir said, and every time she flinched, he plunged a knife into her back.
She said she then watched another woman “shredded into pieces.” While one terrorist raped her, she said, another pulled out a box cutter and sliced off her breast.
“One continues to rape her, and the other throws her breast to someone else, and they play with it, throw it, and it falls on the road,” Sapir said.
She said the men sliced her face and then the woman fell out of view. Around the same time, she said, she saw three other women raped and terrorists carrying the severed heads of three more women.
Sapir provided photographs of her hiding place and her wounds, and police officials have stood by her testimony and released a video of her, with her face blurred, recounting some of what she saw.
Yura Karol, a 22-year-old security consultant, said he was hiding in the same spot, and he can be seen in one of Sapir’s photos. He and Sapir were part of a group of friends who had met up at the party. In an interview, Mr. Karol said he barely lifted his head to look at the road but he also described seeing a woman raped and killed.
Since that day, Sapir said, she has struggled with a painful rash that spread across her torso, and she can barely sleep, waking up at night, heart pounding, covered in sweat.
“That day, I became an animal,” she said. “I was emotionally detached, sharp, just the adrenaline of survival. I looked at all this as if I was photographing them with my eyes, not forgetting any detail. I told myself: I should remember everything.”
That same morning, along Route 232 but in a different location about a mile southwest of the party area, Raz Cohen — a young Israeli who had also attended the rave and had worked recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo training Congolese soldiers — said that he was hiding in a dried-up streambed. It provided some cover from the assailants combing the area and shooting anyone they found, he said in an hour-and-a-half interview in a Tel Aviv restaurant.
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Raz Cohen, a security consultant, survived the Oct. 7 attacks by hiding in a dried-up streambed.
Maybe 40 yards in front of him, he recalled, a white van pulled up and its doors flew open.
He said he then saw five men, wearing civilian clothes, all carrying knives and one carrying a hammer, dragging a woman across the ground. She was young, naked and screaming.
“They all gather around her,” Mr. Cohen said. “She’s standing up. They start raping her. I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.”
“Then one of them raises a knife,” he said, “and they just slaughtered her.”
Shoam Gueta, one of Mr. Cohen’s friends and a fashion designer, said the two were hiding together in the streambed. He said he saw at least four men step out of the van and attack the woman, who ended up “between their legs.” He said that they were “talking, giggling and shouting,” and that one of them stabbed her with a knife repeatedly, “literally butchering her.”
Hours later, the first wave of volunteer emergency medical technicians arrived at the rave site. In interviews, four of them said that they discovered bodies of dead women with their legs spread and underwear missing — some with their hands tied by rope and zipties — in the party area, along the road, in the parking area and in the open fields around the rave site.
Jamal Waraki, a volunteer medic with the nonprofit ZAKA emergency response team, said he could not get out of his head a young woman in a rawhide vest found between the main stage and the bar.
“Her hands were tied behind her back,” he said. “She was bent over, half naked, her underwear rolled down below her knees.”
Yinon Rivlin, a member of the rave’s production team who lost two brothers in the attacks, said that after hiding from the killers, he emerged from a ditch and made his way to the parking area, east of the party, along Route 232, looking for survivors.
Near the highway, he said, he found the body of a young woman, on her stomach, no pants or underwear, legs spread apart. He said her vagina area appeared to have been sliced open, “as if someone tore her apart.”
Similar discoveries were made in two kibbutzim, Be’eri and Kfar Aza. Eight volunteer medics and two Israeli soldiers told The Times that in at least six different houses, they had come across a total of at least 24 bodies of women and girls naked or half naked, some mutilated, others tied up, and often alone.
A paramedic in an Israeli commando unit said that he had found the bodies of two teenage girls in a room in Be’eri.
One was lying on her side, he said, boxer shorts ripped, bruises by her groin. The other was sprawled on the floor face down, he said, pajama pants pulled to her knees, bottom exposed, semen smeared on her back.
Because his job was to look for survivors, he said, he kept moving and did not document the scene. Neighbors of the two girls killed — who were sisters, 13 and 16 — said their bodies had been found alone, separated from the rest of their family.
The Israeli military allowed the paramedic to speak with reporters on the condition that he not be identified because he serves in an elite unit.
Many of the dead were brought to the Shura military base, in central Israel, for identification. Here, too, witnesses said they saw signs of sexual violence.
Shari Mendes, an architect called up as a reserve soldier to help prepare the bodies of female soldiers for burial, said she had seen four with signs of sexual violence, including some with “a lot of blood in their pelvic areas.”
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Shari Mendes, an architect who was called up as a reserve soldier to help handle the bodies of female troops, in a container used to hold bodies before their removal to a morgue at the Shura military base in central Israel.
A dentist, Captain Maayan, who worked at the same identification center, said that she had seen at least 10 bodies of female soldiers from Gaza observation posts with signs of sexual violence.
Captain Maayan asked to be identified only by her rank and surname because of the sensitivity of the subject. She said she had seen several bodies with cuts in their vaginas and underwear soaked in blood and one whose fingernails had been pulled out.
The investigation
The Israeli authorities have no shortage of video evidence from the Oct. 7 attacks. They have gathered hours of footage from Hamas body cameras, dashcams, security cameras and mobile phones showing Hamas terrorists killing civilians and many images of mutilated bodies.
But Moshe Fintzy, a deputy superintendent and senior spokesman of Israel’s national police, said, “We have zero autopsies, zero,” making an O with his right hand.
In the aftermath of the attack, police officials said, forensic examiners were dispatched to the Shura military base to help identify the hundreds of bodies — Israeli officials say around 1,200 people were killed that day.
The examiners worked quickly to give the agonized families of the missing a sense of closure and to determine, by a process of elimination, who was dead and who was being held hostage in Gaza.
According to Jewish tradition, funerals are held promptly. The result was that many bodies with signs of sexual abuse were put to rest without medical examinations, meaning that potential evidence now lies buried in the ground. International forensic experts said that it would be possible to recover some evidence from the corpses, but that it would be difficult.
Mr. Fintzy said Israeli security forces were still finding imagery that shows women were brutalized. Sitting at his desk at an imposing police building in Jerusalem, he swiped open his phone, tapped and produced the video of the two soldiers shot in the vagina, which he said was recorded by Hamas gunmen and recently recovered by Israeli soldiers.
A colleague sitting next to him, Mirit Ben Mayor, a police chief superintendent, said she believed that the brutality against women was a combination of two ferocious forces, “the hatred for Jews and the hatred for women.”
Some emergency medical workers now wish they had documented more of what they saw. In interviews, they said they had moved bodies, cut off zip ties and cleaned up scenes of carnage. Trying to be respectful to the dead, they inadvertently destroyed evidence.
Many volunteers working for ZAKA, the emergency response team, are religious Jews and operate under strict rules that command deep respect for the dead.
“I did not take pictures because we are not allowed to take pictures,” said Yossi Landau, a ZAKA volunteer. “In retrospect, I regret it.”
There are at least three women and one man who were sexually assaulted and survived, according to Gil Horev, a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs. “None of them has been willing to come physically for treatment,” he said. Two therapists said they were working with a woman who was gang raped at the rave and was in no condition to talk to investigators or reporters.
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Yossi Landau, a volunteer with the nonprofit ZAKA emergency response team, said he had not taken pictures of the bodies because it was not allowed. “In retrospect, I regret it,” he added.
The trauma from sexual assault can be so heavy that sometimes survivors do not speak about it for years, several rape counselors said.
“Many people are looking for the golden evidence, of a woman who will testify about what happened to her. But don’t look for that, don’t put this pressure on this woman,” said Orit Sulitzeanu, executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel. “The corpses tell the story.”
The woman in the black dress
One of the last images of Ms. Abdush alive — captured by a security camera mounted on her front door — shows her leaving home with her husband, Nagi, at 2:30 a.m. on Oct. 7 for the rave.
He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. She was dressed in a short black dress, a black shawl tied around her waist and combat boots. As she struts out, she takes a swig from a glass (her brother-in-law remembers it was Red Bull and vodka) and laughs.
You’ve got to live life like it’s your last moments. That was her motto, her sisters said.
At daybreak, hundreds of terrorists closed in on the party from several directions, blocking the highways leading out. The couple jumped into their Audi, dashing off a string of messages as they moved.
“We’re on the border,” Ms. Abdush wrote to her family. “We’re leaving.”
“Explosions.”
Her husband made his own calls to his family, leaving a final audio message for his brother, Nissim, at 7:44 a.m. “Take care of the kids,” he said. “I love you.”
Gunshots rang out, and the message stopped.
That night, Eden Wessely, a car mechanic, drove to the rave site with three friends and found Ms. Abdush sprawled half naked on the road next to her burned car, about nine miles north of the site. She did not see the body of Mr. Abdush.
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Eden Wessely, a car mechanic, drove to the rave site looking for a missing friend but instead found Ms. Abdush sprawled half naked on the road next to her burned car.
She saw other burned cars and other bodies, and shot videos of several — hoping that they would help people to identify missing relatives. When she posted the video of the woman in the black dress on her Instagram story, she was deluged with messages.
“Hi, based on your description of the woman in the black dress, did she have blonde hair?” one message read.
“Eden, the woman you described with the black dress, do you remember the color of her eyes?” another said.
Some members of the Abdush family saw that video and another version of it filmed by one of Ms. Wessely’s friends. They immediately suspected that the body was Ms. Abdush, and based on the way her body was found, they feared that she might have been raped.
But they kept alive a flicker of hope that somehow, it wasn’t true.
The videos caught the eye of Israeli officials as well — very quickly after Oct. 7 they began gathering evidence of atrocities. They included footage of Ms. Abdush’s body in a presentation made to foreign governments and media organizations, using Ms. Abdush as a representation of violence committed against women that day.
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A screenshot from a video showing Ms. Abdush’s body.Credit…Eden Wessely
A week after her body was found, three government social workers appeared at the gate of the family’s home in Kiryat Ekron, a small town in central Israel. They broke the news that Ms. Abdush, 34, had been found dead.
But the only document the family received was a one-page form letter from Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, expressing his condolences and sending a hug. The body of Mr. Abdush, 35, was identified two days after his wife’s. It was badly burned and investigators determined who he was based on a DNA sample and his wedding ring.
The couple had been together since they were teenagers. To the family, it seems only yesterday that Mr. Abdush was heading off to work to fix water heaters, a bag of tools slung over his shoulder, and Ms. Abdush was cooking up mashed potatoes and schnitzel for their two sons, Eliav, 10, and Refael, 7.
The boys are now orphans. They were sleeping over at an aunt’s the night their parents were killed. Ms. Abdush’s mother and father have applied for permanent custody, and everyone is chipping in to help.
Night after night, Ms. Abdush’s mother, Eti Bracha, lies in bed with the boys until they drift off. A few weeks ago, she said she tried to quietly leave their bedroom when the younger boy stopped her.
“Grandma,” he said, “I want to ask you a question.”
“Honey,” she said, “you can ask anything.”
“Grandma, how did mom die?”
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Ms. Abdush’s parents, Eti Bracha, 56, and her husband, Eli, 60.
Last month, Professor Gurminder K Bhambra from the University of Sussex Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies published a letter on behalf of the British Sociological Association (BSA), where she is the President. Two hundred ninety members of the BSA signed the letter. The letter condemned Israel alone for the current war between Israel and Gaza and twisted the Israeli-Palestinian history favoring the Palestinians.
The letter says,
“Israel’s devastation of Gaza is a disproportionate response to the terror attack undertaken by Hamas on October 7th which killed over a thousand Israelis, migrant workers, and foreign citizens and took over 200 people hostage. The Israeli response has killed over 15,000 Palestinian men, women, and children, with an unknown number still buried under the rubble and uncounted, and the displacement of over a million people from their homes in the north of Gaza to the south. We understand these events as part of the ongoing Nakba, beginning in 1948, but with a longer history. The Balfour Declaration in 1917, for example, saw the British pledge to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine and there was an exponential increase in the movement of Jewish people to those lands in the aftermath of the Shoah. The Nazi regime’s systematic slaughter of Jewish populations across Europe in the 1940s followed centuries of pogroms by Europe’s Christians against Jewish minority communities. Prohibitions on the free movement of Jewish people to the UK in the aftermath of the Second World War left few options for Jewish people who no longer felt able to live in Europe. The creation of a catastrophe from ongoing European catastrophes must be acknowledged. As sociologists, we deplore the systematic destruction of human communities. The current ceasefire provides a vital respite from the death and destruction unleashed by Israel and must become permanent with a negotiated political solution that is just to all parties. We do not believe that there is any military solution. International support will be needed to rebuild Gaza including the reconstruction of its hospitals, schools, and universities which have been destroyed. We commit to work with colleagues from the region to rebuild educational infrastructures in Gaza.”
The letter only cares for the Gazans and not for Israelis. It also ignores the numerous rejections of the Palestinians to accept the Jewish state. It doesn’t acknowledge Hamas’s charter’s aim to destroy Israel. The letter is so biased that it only calls for rebuilding Gaza but not the Israeli communities that were damaged in the Hamas attack on October 7, not to mention the missile attacks that Hamas has been launching from Gaza to Israel since the outbreak of the war on October 7 to this day.
British sociologists have been leading the anti-Israel sentiments in British academia.
Recently, the British Arabic media Middle East Eye (MEE), a media outlet based in London spreading anti-Israel information, published an article discussing how a group of 24 academics from the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester, UK, have called on their University to end the programs with Israeli universities and to divest from companies involved in Israel’s defense industry. MEE did not provide any link to the letter, neither a copy of the letter, nor who is behind it.
According to MEE, the academics wrote, “We are all witness to Israel’s ongoing mass killing of Palestinians, assisted and armed by the UK government… The bombardment of Gaza is the latest, horrific phase of 75 years of Israel’s expulsion, occupation, dispossession, brutalization, humiliation, incarceration without trial including of children, torture, maiming, and killing of Palestinians.”
MEE reported that the academics called on the University of Manchester to end the joint research fund with Tel Aviv University because of its research and development in weapons, surveillance technologies, military strategy, and operational theory. They also called for the end of the exchange agreement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem because it hosts Israel’s army intelligence training program, Havatzalot, which conducts surveillance of Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem. In addition, the academics called for the University of Manchester to dissolve its partnerships with the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre, GKN Aerospace and Haydale, which all have ties to Israel’s defense sector. The University of Manchester’s relationship with donors also came under scrutiny. The authors called for the University of Manchester to divest from HSBC, Siemens, and “all other companies who invest in Israeli weapons, military technologies, and the means of Israeli apartheid.”
This is not the first time MEE has published anti-Israel propaganda. In 2021, IAM reported that the MEEpublished a petition signed by 236 staff and postgraduate students, many sociologists, of the University of Manchester. This petition asked the University of Manchester to end its research partnership with Tel Aviv University.
When it comes to Israel, the anti-Israel cohorts raise their voices while they do not criticize Hamas’s atrocities against Israeli civilians. Britain designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, acknowledging It also harms its own population. Britain should invest in educating its pro-terrorist sociologists in its midst.
Israel’s devastation of Gaza is a disproportionate response to the terror attack undertaken by Hamas on October 7th which killed over a thousand Israelis, migrant workers, and foreign citizens and took over 200 people hostage. The Israeli response has killed over 15,000 Palestinian men, women, and children, with an unknown number still buried under the rubble and uncounted, and the displacement of over a million people from their homes in the north of Gaza to the south.
We understand these events as part of the ongoing Nakba, beginning in 1948, but with a longer history. The Balfour Declaration in 1917, for example, saw the British pledge to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine and there was an exponential increase in the movement of Jewish people to those lands in the aftermath of the Shoah. The Nazi regime’s systematic slaughter of Jewish populations across Europe in the 1940s followed centuries of pogroms by Europe’s Christians against Jewish minority communities. Prohibitions on the free movement of Jewish people to the UK in the aftermath of the Second World War left few options for Jewish people who no longer felt able to live in Europe. The creation of a catastrophe from ongoing European catastrophes must be acknowledged.
As sociologists, we deplore the systematic destruction of human communities. The current ceasefire provides a vital respite from the death and destruction unleashed by Israel and must become permanent with a negotiated political solution that is just to all parties. We do not believe that there is any military solution. International support will be needed to rebuild Gaza including the reconstruction of its hospitals, schools, and universities which have been destroyed. We commit to work with colleagues from the region to rebuild educational infrastructures in Gaza.
The signatories hold various positions in UK universities and in professional societies and associations but sign this letter in an individual capacity.
Gurminder K Bhambra, President of the British Sociological Association (2022-2024) and Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies, University of Sussex
Martin Albrow, Past President of the British Sociological Association (1985-1987) and Emeritus Professor, University of Wales
Sara Arber, Past President of the British Sociological Association (1999-2001) and Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey
John Brewer, Past President of the British Sociological Association (2009-2012) and Professor Emeritus, Queen’s University Belfast
Rachel Brooks, Incoming President of the British Sociological Association (2024-) and Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey
Susan Halford, Past President of the British Sociological Association (2018-2022) and Professor of Sociology, University of Bristol
John Holmwood, Past President of the British Sociological Association (2012-2014) and Emeritus Professor, University of Nottingham
Lynn Jamieson, Past President of the British Sociological Association (2014-2018) and Professor of Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Sue Scott, Past President of the British Sociological Association (2007-2009) and Visiting Professor, Newcastle University and University of Helsinki
John Scott, Past President of the British Sociological Association (2001-2003) and Emeritus Professor, University of Plymouth
Additional signatories
Dr Finn MacKay, University of West of England
Briony Hannell, University Teacher in Sociology at the University of Sheffield
Ece Kocabıçak, Lecturer in Sociology, The Open University
Eda Yazici, Research Associate, University of Bristol
Eliran Bar-El, Lecturer in Sociology, University of York
Alejandro Miranda Nieto and I work as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Dr Alan Roe, Lecturer, University of Leeds
Marcus Morgan, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Bristol
Balihar Sanghera, University of Kent
Dr Mike Sheaff, Visiting Research Fellow, University of Plymouth
Professor Hannah Jones, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick
Bridget Byrne, Professor of Sociology, University of Manchester
Remi Joseph-Salisbury, Reader, University of Manchester
Professor Nick Couldry, London School of Economics
Dr Tara Mahfoud, University of Essex
Dr Rima Saini, Trustee of the British Sociological Association (2021-present) and Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Middlesex University London
Dr Saleema F Burney, Research Fellow, University of Birmingham
Rachel Cohen, Professor of Sociology, Work and Employment, City, University of London
Stefania Vicari, The University of Sheffield
Anna Strhan, University of York
Jennifer Remnant, Chancellor’s Fellow in Work, Employment and Organisation, University of Strathclyde
Lorenzo Cini, University College Cork
Professor Brendan Burchell, Professor of the social sciences, University of Cambridge
Patricia Irizar, University of Manchester
Konrad Rekas, HPL, Nottingham Trent University
Miriam Tenquist, University of Manchester
Maryam Alhajri, Sociology PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh, and a Researcher and Teaching Assistant at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
Simon Bailey, University of Kent
Po-Han Lee, Assistant Professor of Global Health Studies, National Taiwan University
Dawn Lyon, Professor of Sociology, University of Kent
Giorgos Bithymitris, National Centre for Social Research
Rampaul Chamba, Member of the British Sociological Association
Dr. Lisa Howard, postdoctoral researcher, University of Edinburgh
Dr Sadia Habib, Lecturer in Education, University of Manchester
Bridget Anderson, Director Migration Mobilities Bristol, University of Bristol
Caroline Casey, Assistant Professor of Work, Management and Organisation, University of York
Chris Phillipson, Emeritus Professor, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester
Sugandha Agarwal, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences at the University of Manchester
Ann Phoenix, UCL
Dr Dyuti Chakravarty, Postdoctoral Researcher, University College Cork
Aina Tarabini, principal convenor of the BSA Bourdieu Study Group (2022-) and associate professor of sociology of education at Autonomous University of Barcelona
Francesca Romana Ammaturo, London Metropolitan University
Alex Law, Professor of Sociology, Abertay University
Aerin Lai, PhD researcher, Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Isabel Fletcher, Researcher in Social Science and Food Systems, University of Edinburgh
Ayesha Siddiqa, Member of the British Sociological Association (2023-24) and Lecturer of Sociology, University of Sargodha Pakistan
Syra Shakir, Associate Professor Learning and Teaching, Leeds Trinity University
dipak (dipbuk) Panchal, PhD Candidate at University of Warwick
Priscilla Alderson, Professor Emerita, University College London
Mano Candappa, University College London
Rachel Thomson, Professor of Childhood & Youth Studies, University of Sussex
Michael Harloe FACSS, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Salford
Professor Gladys Ganiel, Queen’s University Belfast
Dr. Carolina Matos, FHEA,Senior Lecturer in Media and Sociology, City University of London
Tariq Modood, Fellow of the British Academy and Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, University of Bristol
Professor Nicola Ingram, University College Cork
Leslie Sklair, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics
Jingyu Mao, the University of Edinburgh
Esca van Blarikom, Queen Mary University London
Barbara Crossouard, Professor of Theory in Education, University of Sussex
Karl Spracklen, Professor of Sociology of Leisure and Culture, Leeds Beckett University
Professor Barry Gibson, Professor in Medical Sociology, University of Sheffield
Taz Goddard-Fuller, Professor of Medical Education, University of Liverpool, School of Medicine
Cailean Gallagher, Associate Lecturer, St Andrews University
Noortje Marres, Professor of Science, Technology and Society, University of Warwick
Piyush Pushkar, Clinical Lecturer, University of Manchester
Dr Karina Pavlisa, University of Bristol
Juliet Hall, Post Graduate Researcher University of Plymouth
Alif Rafid Alfaridzi, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield
Patricia Gilbert, University of Portsmouth
Rev Mr Philip J Fernandez, Ontario, Canada
Tracy Shildrick, Professor of Inequalities, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University
Val Gillies, Professor of Social Policy, Centre for Socai Justice Research, University of Westminster
Graham Crow, University of Edinburgh
Salman Yaqoob, Postgrad student in Aberystwyth Business School, Wales
Richard Twine, Reader in Sociology, Edge Hill University
Bridget Fowler, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Glasgow
Dr Tom Mills, Aston University
Professor Pamela Abbott F AcSS, Director of the Centre for Global Development , University of Aberdeen
Yingzi Shen, University of Sheffield
Zoe Walshe, Goldsmiths, University of London
Anna Gillions, Post-graduate researcher, Centre for Trust Peace and Social Relations, Coventry University
Kobe De Keere, Assistant Professor, University of Amsterdam
Raquel Boso Perez, University of Glasgow
Shannon Martin, PhD Student, The Open University
Emily Jays, PhD Student in Education, University of Strathclyde
Howard Davis, Emeritus Professor, Bangor University
Asiya Islam, Lecturer, University of Leeds
Olatunji Adigun Adebola, staff coordinator at ALAD, Liberia and a member of British Sociological Association
Huw Beynon, Emeritus professor social science, Cardiff University
Dr Paul-Francois Tremlett, The Open University
Dr Caroline Oliver (SFHEA), University College London
William Outhwaite, FAcSS, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Newcastle University
Asma Khan, Centre for the Study of Islam in the UK
Chrissie Rogers, Professor of Sociology, University of Kent
Florence Villesèche, Editorial board member of Work, Employment and Society (2023-), and Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School
Jeffrey Hyman, Prof Emeritus, University of Aberdeen
Dr Chloe Maclean, University of the West of Scotland
Rin Ushiyama, Lecturer in Sociology, Queen’s University Belfast
Eamonn Carrabine, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK
Hoshang Noraiee, Retired, taught in the University of Westminster and London Metropolitan
Ian Watt UWS – retired
Kirsten Forkert, Birmingham City University
Aimee Middlemiss, University of Plymouth
Marlo De Lara, University of Edinburgh
Amanda Latimer, Department of Criminology, Politics & Sociology, Kingston University
Simina Dragos, PhD Candidate – University of Cambridge
Professor Emeritus Stephen Mennell, University College Dublin
Raphaël Nowak, University of York
Dr Bethany Simmonds, Aberystwyth University
Nicholas Abercrombie, Emeritus Professor, University of Lancaster
Tony Elger, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, University of Warwick
Gerard Delanty, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Sussex University
Andrew Stevens, Associate Professor, University of Regina (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada)
Yvette Taylor, University of Strathclyde
Dr Chinwe Egbunike-Umegbolu, University of Brighton
Sara Chaudhry, Birkbeck, University of London
Dr Lila Skountridaki, University of Edinburgh
Professor Nigel Gilbert, University of Surrey
Kath Maguire, Member of the British Sociological Association, Public Involvement and Engagement Lead, European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter
Stevi Jackson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology/Centre for Women’s Studies
Doğuş Şimşek, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology, Kingston University London
Prof Daniela Sime, Professor of Youth, Migration and Social Justice, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
Dr Sweta Rajan-Rankin, Reader, University or Kent
Angela Loum, PhD candidate, Goldsmiths University Sociology department
Annalisa Murgia, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Milan
Alison Wilde – Senior Lecturer, Leeds Trinity University
Suki Ali, LSE
Julia Brannen, emerita professor UCL Institute of Education
Professor David Weir, Professor of Intercultural Management, York St John University
Dr Elizabeth Cotton, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Dr Siân Russell, Newcastle University
Andrew Baron – UCLAN
Sharon Gewirtz, King’s College London
Jonathan Gabe, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Royal Holloway, University of London
Pam Law, past trustee of the BSA
Jennie Popay, Distinguished Professor Sociology and Public Health, Lancaster University
John Holford, Robert Peers Professor of Adult Education Emeritus, University of Nottingham
Harriet Bradley, Professor Emerita, University of Bristol and the University of the West of England
Syd Jeffers, University of East London
Nasar Meer, Former BSA Trustee, Professor of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow
Janice McLaughlin, Newcastle University
Dr Fouzia Azzouz, Honorary Research Associate, University of Bristol
Prof. Dr. IRENA NIKAJ, University Fan S. Noli, Albania
Professor Mark Featherstone, Head of School of Social, Political, and Global Studies, Keele University
Les Back, University of Glasgow
Richard Sennett, Chair, The London Centre for the Humanities
Paraskevi-Viviane Galata, Member of the British Sociological Association and Lecturer in Sociology of work and adult education, Hellenic Open University
Derek Williams, Retired, Former senior lecturer in Sociology, Solent University, Southampton
Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor of Sociology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Kaori Muto, Professor, The Institute of Medical Sciences, The University of Tokyo
Dr Sazana Jayadeva, Surrey Future Fellow, University of Surrey
Kath Woodward, FAcSS, FLSW, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Open University
Nigel de Noronha, University of Manchester
Dr Niamh Moore, University of Edinburgh
Yao-Tai Li, UNSW, Sydney, Australia
Matthew Waites, University of Glasgow
Wendy Olsen, Professor of Socioeconomics, University of Manchester
Sari Hanafi, former President of the International Sociological Association (2018-2023)
Graham Scambler, Emeritus Professor of Sociology, UCL
Professor David James, Cardiff University
Moslem Boushehrian, Post Graduate Researcher, University of Surrey
Diana Khor, Hosei University
Ikuko Tomomatsu, Visiting researcher of Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Japan
Suvi Salmenniemi, University of Turku, Finland
Petra Nordqvist, University of Manchester
John Horne, Past Chair of the British Sociological Association Board of Trustees (2017-2018)
Erin Shannon, Associate Researcher in Sociology at Newcastle University
Richenda Power, The Open University
Sarah Irwin, Professor of Sociology, University of Leeds
Sonya Sharma, Lecturer in Sociology, University College London
Professor Andrew Smith. Sociology, University of Glasgow
Dr Evelyn Mahon, Trinity College, Dublin, Fellow Emerita
Corinne Squire, Chair in Global inequalities, Bristol University
Edwin van Teijlingen, Professor, Bournemouth University, UK and Book Review Editor Sociological Research Online
Stephanie King, Nottingham Trent University
Anne Arber, University of Surrey
Leah de Quattro – University of Manchester (PhD Student)
Zhuofei Lu, The University of Manchester
Fiona McQueen, Edinburgh Napier University
Dr María Villares-Varela FHEA, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Southampton
Dr Luisa Gandolfo, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Aberdeen
Robert Meadows, Editor in Chief Sociology and Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Surrey
Dr Helene Snee, Manchester Metropolitan University
Christina Weis, Senior Lecturer in Global Health, De Montfort University
Louise Ryan, past chair of the BSA board of Trustees, Senior Professor of Sociology, London Metropolitan University
Professor Paul Stewart, Senior Professor of Sociology of Work and Employment at Grenoble Ecole de Management, former editor of Work, Employment and Society and member of the BSA
Professor Ali Rattansi, Honorary Visiting Professor, Department of Sociology, City, University of London
Professor Emmanuelle Tulle, Professor of Sociology, Glasgow Caledonian University
Sadiya Akram, Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr Maureen McBride, University of Glasgow
Hannah Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Sheffield
Dr Victoria Redclift, Associate Professor of Political Sociology, Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Social Research Institute
Prof Sam Whimster, Global Policy Institute London
James Cummings, Lecturer in Sociology, University of York
Caitlin Nunn, Manchester Metropolitan University
Alexandrina Vanke, Research Fellow, Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Dr Nadia Haq, Research Fellow, Cardiff University
Professor Umut Erel, The Open University
Ellen Annandale, Professor of Sociology, University of York
Dr James Pattison, Research Fellow, University of Lincoln
R.Sánchez-Rivera, Research Fellow, Gonville & Caius College-University of Cambridge
Katie Higgins, University of Oxford
Gethin Rees, Senior Lecturer, Newcastle University
David Scott, Abertay University
Dr Meghan Tinsley, Senior Lecturer, University of Manchester
Leah Gilman, University of Sheffield
Barbora Cernusakova, Hallsworth Fellow, Sociology, University of Manchester
Dr Eleanor Kirk, University of Glasgow
Professor Ann Oakley, Social Research Institute, University College London
Geraldine Healy, Professor Emeritus of Employment Relations, Queen Mary University of London
Dr Martin Crook, University of West of England
Dr Joyce Mamode, Birkbeck, University of London
Lena Theodoropoulou, University of Liverpool
Sayo Mitsui, Hosei University, Japan
Professor Kay Peggs, Kingston University London
Carole Murphy, Director, Bakhita Centre for Research on Slavery and Abuse, and Asssociate Professor, Criminology and Sociology, St Mary’s University, London
Steven Roberts, Professor of Education and Social Justice, Monash University
Massilia Ourabah, UGent (Belgium)
Fiona Christie, Senior lecturer, Manchester Metropolitan University
Carrie Friese, LSE
Jenny van Hooff, Manchester Metropolitan University
Baptiste Brossard, University of York
Professor Eileen Green, Emeritus Professor Teesside University
Isirabahenda Gonzague, PhD candidate at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Founder and Vice-President of the International Citizens Council from Cluj-Napoca/Romania (2023-up to date) and Vice President of the Center for Peace and Violence Prevention (CPVP).
Andrew Sayer, Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy, Lancaster University
Professor Stephen Vertigans, Dean of School of Applied Social Studies, Robert Gordon University, Scotland
Stefanie Doebler, Lancaster University
Stephen Ackroyd, Professor Emeritus, Lancaster University
Franca Roeschert, PhD candidate, University of Greenwich
Bill Harley, The University of Melbourne
Maryam Aldossari, Senior Lecturer in HRM & Organisation Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London
Louiza Odysseos, Professor of International Relations, University of Sussex
Dr. Laura Harris, University of Southampton
Professor Janette Webb MBE FRSE FEI, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh
Sophie Buijsen, PhD student in Science Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh
Jeff Hearn, Professor of Sociology, University of Huddersfield, and Professor Emeritus, Hanken School of Economics, Finland, and Senior Professor, Örebro University, Sweden
Diane Richardson, Emerita Professor, Newcastle University
Angela Dale, Retired, University of Manchester
Narzanin Massoumi, University of Exeter
Professor Brian Heaphy, The University of Manchester
Edmund Coleman-Fountain, University of York
Malcolm MacLean, Academic Director (Interim), Doctoral College, University of Wales Trinity St David; Associate Professor (Extraordinary), Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Prof Scott Fleming Bishop Grosseteste University
Madoka Nagado, The University of the Ryukyus
Dr Benjamin Bowman, Senior Lecturer, Manchester Centre for Youth Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University
Martin Greenwood, University of Manchester
Noirin Mac Namara, Postdoctoral Researcher, Maynooth University
Dr. Maria Berghs, Associate Professor Global Health, De Montfort University
Paul Watt, Visiting Professor, London School of Economics
Dr Milena Kremakova, member of the British Sociological Association and Editor at the Sociological Review Magazine
Sarah Neal, University of Sheffield
Lucy Mablin, Senior Lecturer Sociology, Sheffield University
Dr Isabel Crowhurst, University of Essex
Wendy Stacey-Alidina, University of Wales
Tim Butcher, Editor-in-Chief of Sociological Research Online (2023-2025) and Associate Professor of Organisation Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia
Ashley Collar, PhD Student, Sociology at University of Manchester
JulieWalsh, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Sheffield
Carys Hughes, University of East London
Eileen Barker, Professor Em. Sociology, London School of Economics
Dr Jane McCarthy, The Open University
Dr Sarah Kunz, University of Essex
Prof Gayle Letherby, Visiting Professor at the Universities of Plymouth, Greenwich and Bath
Alan Petersen, Professor of Sociology, Monash University
John MacArtney, Associate Professor, University of Warwick
Dr Nayia Kamenou, University of Cyprus
John MacArtney, Associate Professor, University of Warwick
Jana Kriechbaum, PhD Researcher, City, University of London
Sarah Hoare, University of Cambridge
Alan Warde, University of Manchester
Anna Smolentseva, PhD Student, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge
Hugo Gorringe, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Edinburgh
Kuba Jablonowski, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Bristol
Rosa Targett, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Bristol
Rebecca Coleman, Professor, University of Bristol
Junko Yamashita, Senior lecturer, University of Bristol
Kate Weiner, University of Sheffield
Julia O’Connell Davidson, Professor of Social Research, University of Bristol
Alessia Dalceggio, PhD student, School of Social Sciences and Professions, London Metropolitan University
Gurminder K Bhambra FBA FAcSS is President of the British Sociological Association and Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies, University of Sussex.
Academics call on UK university to divest from Israel
13 December 2023 18:20 GMT
A group of 24 academic staff in the department of sociology at the University of Manchester have called on the University to end its joint programmes with Israeli universities and divest from companies involved in Israel’s defence sector.
“We are all witness to Israel’s ongoing mass killing of Palestinians, assisted and armed by the UK government,” the staff wrote.
“The bombardment of Gaza is the latest, horrific phase of 75 years of Israel’s expulsion, occupation, dispossession, brutalisation, humiliation, incarceration without trial including of children, torture, maiming, and killing of Palestinians.”
The authors called on the University of Manchester to end its joint research fund with Tel Aviv University, citing the work it does on research and development in weapons and surveillance technologies, and in military strategy and operational theory.
They also called for the end of an exchange agreement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem because it hosts Israel’s army intelligence training programme, Havatzalo, and conducts surveillance of Palestinians living in occupied East Jerusalem.
In addition, the staff called for the school to dissolve its partnerships with the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre, GKN Aerospace and Haydale, which have ties to Israel’s defence sector.
The University of Manchester’s relationship with donors also came under scrutiny. The authors called for the school to divest from HSBC, Siemens and “all other companies who invest in Israeli weapons, military technologies, and the means of Israeli apartheid”.
University of Manchester academics urge end to Israel ties
7:01 PM
The New Arab Staff
Twenty-four faculty members from the University of Manchester’s sociology department have urged the university to cut its ties with Israeli academic institutions and divest from firms linked to Israel’s defense industry.
In their statement, the staff highlighted, “We are all witness to Israel’s ongoing mass killing of Palestinians, assisted and armed by the UK government. The bombardment of Gaza is the latest, horrific phase of 75 years of Israel’s expulsion, occupation, dispossession, brutalisation, humiliation, incarceration without trial including of children, torture, maiming, and killing of Palestinians.”
They specifically requested the termination of the University of Manchester’s joint research fund with Tel Aviv University, pointing to its involvement in weapons, surveillance technology, military strategy, and operational theory research.
The group also advocated ending an exchange program with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, citing its hosting of Israel’s army intelligence training program, Havatzalo, and its surveillance activities in occupied East Jerusalem.
The academics also called for the university to cut ties with the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre, GKN Aerospace, and Haydale, all of which are connected to Israel’s defense sector.
They also scrutinised the University of Manchester’s relationships with various donors, urging the institution to divest from HSBC, Siemens, and “all other companies who invest in Israeli weapons, military technologies, and the means of Israeli apartheid”.
Alarm over Israel’s detention of 70 medics at hospital
AUTHOR администратор (administrator)
PUBLISHED BY 14.12.2023
Twenty-four faculty members from the University of Manchester’s sociology department have urged the university to cut its ties with Israeli academic institutions and divest from firms linked to Israel’s defense industry.
In their statement, the staff highlighted, “We are all witness to Israel’s ongoing mass killing of Palestinians, assisted and armed by the UK government. The bombardment of Gaza is the latest, horrific phase of 75 years of Israel’s expulsion, occupation, dispossession, brutalisation, humiliation, incarceration without trial including of children, torture, maiming, and killing of Palestinians.”
They specifically requested the termination of the University of Manchester’s joint research fund with Tel Aviv University, pointing to its involvement in weapons, surveillance technology, military strategy, and operational theory research.
The group also advocated ending an exchange program with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, citing its hosting of Israel’s army intelligence training program, Havatzalo, and its surveillance activities in occupied East Jerusalem.
The academics also called for the university to cut ties with the Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre, GKN Aerospace, and Haydale, all of which are connected to Israel’s defense sector.
They also scrutinised the University of Manchester’s relationships with various donors, urging the institution to divest from HSBC, Siemens, and “all other companies who invest in Israeli weapons, military technologies, and the means of Israeli apartheid”.
By providing the residents of the Gaza Strip with various services, UNRWA exempted Hamas from its responsibilities as the governing body, such as creating a working economy that would pay for education and healthcare, and allowed it, instead, to invest resources in building tunnels and manufacturing weapons.
“They [UNRWA] teach us that the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to us [Muslims], that Palestine belongs to us,” said Atif Sharha, a student at an UNRWA school.
“Yes, they teach us that the Zionists are our enemy,” said Nur Taha, a third-year student from Kalandia. “We should carry out an [terror] operation against them [Zionists].”
“The Palestinian matriculation exams [at UNRWA] have become a finishing school in extremism. It is as if the Palestinian Authority is cramming as much hate into the tests as possible, to ensure the twelve previous years of indoctrination stay with them into adulthood.” — Marcus Sheff, CEO at the Institute for Cultural Peace and Tolerance in School Education, i24news.tv, July 23, 2023.
Despite years of considerable condemnation of the textbooks, newly produced editions, approved by UNRWA, are exponentially worse….
Whatever hopes that anyone may have held for the trustworthiness of UNRWA have long expired, and were arguably misplaced at the outset. UNRWA, in its current state, has proven itself irremediably defective, unworkable and yet another massive stain on the already scandalously stained UN.
It is high time for the international community and those who actually want a better future for the Palestinians to liquidate UNRWA and take actions that truly help the Palestinians move forward to a golden life.
More than 50% of UNRWA’s annual budget of $1.6 billion is dedicated to funding Palestinian schools. These schools have been fostering war-mongering hatred against Israel, and against Jews in general, while predictably churning out their final product: terrorists and terrorist sympathizers. Pictured: A still shot from the documentary film “Camp Jihad,” featuring a summer camp in Gaza sponsored and funded by UNRWA. (Image source: Nahum Bedein Center for Near East Policy Research)
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was originally a small agency mandated to provide basic humanitarian relief for Palestinians, including a vote for renewal every three years. Seventy-three years and four generations later, and with more than 30,000 employees and an annual budget of more than $1 billion, it has astonishingly become one of the largest UN agencies.
In the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, UNRWA has, in fact, long been operating as the de facto government. By providing the residents of the Gaza Strip with various services, UNRWA exempted Hamas from its responsibilities as the governing body, such as creating a working economy that would pay for education and healthcare, and allowed it, instead, to invest resources in building tunnels and manufacturing weapons. If UNRWA were not there, Hamas would have been forced to fill the vacuum and, for example, build hospitals and schools and find solutions to economic hardship, including unemployment and poverty.
As senior Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk said, in explaining why no cement could be spared from terror tunnels to build bomb shelters for Gazan citizens:
“The tunnels were built to protect the fighters of Hamas from [Israeli] airstrikes. As you know, 75% of the residents of the Gaza Strip are refugees. It is the responsibility of the United Nations to protect the refugees.”
Hamas was effectively saying: We are responsible for what happens underground, while UNRWA is responsible for what happens above ground.
In addition to evolving into a monster-sized agency, UNRWA has also morphed into a very costly incubator for terror. UNRWA-run schools emphasize and promote the “right of return,” a euphemism for flooding Israel with millions of Palestinians and turning it into a Muslim-majority Islamist state backed by Iran.
More than 50% of UNRWA’s annual budget of $1.6 billion is dedicated to funding Palestinian schools. These schools have been fostering war-mongering hatred against Israel, and against Jews in general, from the youngest, most impressionable ages and onward throughout the school years, while predictably churning out their final product: terrorists and terrorist sympathizers.
“They [UNRWA] teach us that the Al-Aqsa Mosque belongs to us [Muslims], that Palestine belongs to us,” said Atif Sharha, a student at a UNRWA school in the Shuafat refugee camp, north of Jerusalem.
“I hate the Jews,” said Yousef, another student at a UNRWA school in Kalandia refugee camp, south of Ramallah.
“Yes, they teach us that the Zionists are our enemy,” said Nur Taha, a third student from Kalandia. “We should carry out an [terror] operation against them [Zionists].”
Marcus Sheff, Chief Executive Officer at The Institute for Cultural Peace and Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) studying these hate-policies, laments:
“The Palestinian matriculation exams have become a finishing school in extremism. It is as if the Palestinian Authority is cramming as much hate into the tests as possible, to ensure the twelve previous years of indoctrination stay with them into adulthood.”
UNRWA then re-inserts many of these hate-infused people right back into its institutions, perpetuating what the UN is keen on blaming Israel for: “the cycle of violence.”
UNRWA schools have been the focus of media scrutiny on many occasions. UNRWA’s textbooks, compiled by the Palestinian Authority, have been blasted for showy, hate-provoking and terror-inciting material such as “a grammar exercise that encourages Palestinians to ‘sacrifice their blood to liberate Jerusalem.'”
Palestinian textbooks produced by UNRWA contain “antisemitic, hateful, and violent passages,” according to IMPACT-se. Some of these passages in an Islamic education drill include labeling Jews as inherently treacherous. A poem included in the educational content glorifies the killing of Israelis, and portrays dying as martyrs by killing Israelis as a “hobby.”
In a grammar exercise, Jews, it is implied, are impure and supposedly defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque. (They do not. The Jews peacefully tour the exterior grounds, called The Temple Mount, a plateau on which the Al Aqsa mosque now sits. The site is the third-holiest in Islam, but in Judaism the holiest. The plateau is where two Jewish Temples once stood, mentioned in the Bible, before they were destroyed — the first by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE; the second by the Roman Empire in 70 CE).
Despite years of considerable condemnation of the textbooks, newly produced editions, approved by UNRWA, are exponentially worse.
“Terrorist activities against Israeli civilians are also part of the struggle against the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Thus, the new books exalt Palestinian terrorists who participated in such actions. Dalal al-Mughrabi, for example, who was killed in a terrorist attack she had led against a civilian bus… in which more than 30 men, women and children were murdered, is mentioned in four books, all studied in UNRWA schools at present. In all of them she is described as a heroine and martyr of Palestine.”
According to the textbooks used in UNRWA schools, Jews have no rights whatsoever or any legitimate status in Israel. A Jewish presence in the country is denied historically, geographically and religiously. No reference is made in the books to the history of the Jews throughout the region, either in Biblical or Roman times. Any connection is also denied of the Jews to their ancient capital, Jerusalem, which is presented as an Arab city since its establishment thousands of years ago. The Jews’ presence in Jerusalem today is bewilderingly presented in the books as an aggression against the city’s Arab character.
Beyond the textbooks, both UNRWA administrators and teachers have proudly displayed their approval of terrorism and hatred on countless occasions, including Hamas’s recent October 7 massacre, according to a report published by UN Watch, an independent non-governmental human rights organization, as well as IMPACT-se.
UNRWA math teacher Adnan Shteiwi, for instance, glorified Diaa Hamarsheh, the perpetrator of the March 2022 Bnei Brak shooting attack — in which he murdered four Israeli civilians and one policeman — as a “martyr” whose name should “forever remain in letters of fire, might, and magnificence.”
UNRWA’s Asma Middle School for Girls B encouraged schoolgirls to ” liberate the homeland by sacrificing ‘their Blood’ and pursuing jihad.”
Roni Krivoi, one of the Israeli hostages recently freed from Hamas captivity, reported that he had been kept prisoner in an attic for more than a month and a half, mostly starved and medically untreated. His jailer was an UNRWA teacher.
In Gaza — as with Ahmad Kahalot, Director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, who admitted that he was the equivalent of a brigadier general for Hamas and that 16 of the hospital’s staff were also “terror operatives for Hamas” — the mesh of Hamas and UNRWA is also illustrated in the high-profile case of Dr. Suhail al-Hindi.
Al-Hindi served as both the principal of an UNRWA elementary school and as the chairman of the UNRWA employee’s union in Gaza. In 2017, UNRWA suspended al-Hindi after it received information that he had just been elected to the Hamas political bureau. UNRWA announced that al-Hindi no longer worked for the agency, but did not say whether he had resigned or been fired. Al-Hindi first said he “resigned” from UNRWA, but later clarified that he was taking early retirement.
The case of al-Hindi and other UNRWA employees suspected of supporting terrorism makes the point that UNRWA is “the money,” while thug terror-groups such as Hamas are “the muscle.”
UNRWA tries to keep up public pretense that its hands are clean, and has taken a belligerently defensive stance against these and other accusations, as it publicly claims that it has a “zero-tolerance policy for hatred.”
The Israeli news site Ynet , however, wrote recently about a UN Watch report:
“In it, some 47 documented cases of school staff promoting antisemitic material are recorded, as school staff openly violates the official UNRWA policy…
“It was only two years ago that UNRWA apologized for similar instances, claiming they were done erroneously and will not occur in the future, but with this latest report, that promise rings hollow.”
One UNRWA employee portrayed Adolf Hitler in a favorable light: “Wake up Hitler, there are people left to burn.”
In addition, as is well-documented, UNRWA has allowed its school buildings to be used by Hamas as storehouses for rocket and other weapons, terrortunnels, and to shelter jihadi terrorists. Hamas and other terror organizations have bet on the media frenzy that would ensue if Israeli forces strike a UN institution (or hospital, mosque, or even a church) that is being used for military purposes. Hamas has been launching rockets at Israel from alongside UNRWA schools, and, when possible, shooting from inside the schools, thereby taking advantage of the sanctuary that a UN institution, especially a “protected space” such as a school, ought to offer under legitimate circumstances.
Last week saw the media explode in condemnation of the Israel Defense Forces for blowing up an UNRWA school, despite the disclosure that the school had been used as a weapons depot and terror tunnels were found in its area.
UNRWA kindergartens have been discovered with weapons hidden inside toys or even in UNRWA bags, and UN officials are charged with being complicit in holding hostages, despite protestations to the contrary. It seems that “zero tolerance” had devolved into “zero oversight.”
When rockets were discovered in UNRWA schools in the past, UNRWA would reassure everyone that they had been turned over to “local authorities.” Those authorities, of course, were Hamas, who most likely relocated them to another equally inappropriate location.
Occasionally, UNRWA officials will make a minor fuss or put on a shocked and affronted façade for donors or the media, but reportedly do nothing in the way of changing the practice. In the upper echelons of UNRWA management, there have been accusations of serious breaches of ethics in the forms of nepotism, bullying, mismanagement of funds — as well as lack of accountability.
This is no small matter, considering that in 2022, annual worldwide contributions to UNRWA alone — not including direct donations to Palestinian governing agencies such as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, nor to the many NGOs and other Palestinian-specific aid agencies — from 68 donor nations, including the Holy See, was $1.1 billion.
Extensive reports released by UN Watch and IMPACT-se have highlighted the malignant influence of terror organizations such as Hamas, Fatah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad on UNRWA institutions that either feign ignorance or offer enthusiastic complicity. The repercussions of these revelations are becoming an embarrassment.
Switzerland’s Parliament recently voted to stop funding UNRWA ($21 million annually), labelled Hamas a terrorist organization and unanimously banned it. “Hamas’ brutal terrorist attacks against Israel necessitate a clear position from Switzerland,” they said.
In 2018, the Trump administration, calling UNRWA an “irredeemably flawed operation,” completely cut America’s $300 million annual donation. The aid was reinstated by President Joe Biden almost immediately after he took office.
Many have called the very inception of UNRWA into question, as the UN already has an agency specifically designated for refugees: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
UNRWA remains a refugee organization distinctly apart from UNHCR based upon two premises: first, that the Palestinians will “return” to their homes in Israel by means of a the “right of return“; and second, that there will never be a resolution not to “return,” thereby making these refugees an eternal stick in the eye to Israel.
The first premise would effectively destroy Israel by imposing a demographic shift: flooding millions of Palestinians, demonstrably none too peace-oriented, into Israel.
The second premise would, and has been, effectively enslaving Palestinians as the crying faces that keep the international “pity-cash” flowing into the coffers of both Palestinian and UNRWA leadership.
Perhaps this may be at least one answer as to why, when UNRWA recently cried for more aid money for Palestinians, the organization was found to have an entire warehouse “filled to the brim” with food. When Gazans stormed the warehouse in October, they discovered copious amounts of rice, lentils, flour and oil.
Whatever hopes that anyone may have held for the trustworthiness of UNRWA have long expired, and were arguably misplaced at the outset. UNRWA, in its current state, has proven itself irremediably defective, unworkable and yet another massive stain on the already scandalously stained UN [such as here, here, here, here and here.] The agency has perpetuated the issue of the “refugees” by keeping them in camps while providing them with basic services, only.
Worse, UNRWA has deliberately created new generations of “refugees” by insisting that the descendants of refugees inherit the status of “refugee” – which on its face is nonsense. It is high time for the international community and those who actually want a better future for the Palestinians to liquidate UNRWA and take actions that truly help the Palestinians move forward to a golden life.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
They brutally murdered 1,200 Israelis – men, women, and children – including infants. They mass raped women and kidnapped and took over 240 hostages, holding them in underground tunnels, some for over 2 months. The level of brutality, included
beheadings and mutilations, making October 7, 2023, the worst atrocity perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust.
In the midst of the ongoing conflict, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has emerged not only as a provider of humanitarian aid but also as a contentious element fueling violence. Investigative reporter David Bedein has been shedding light on UNRWA’s role as a host for Arab terrorism since 1987, offering a crucial perspective on its implications for regional stability.
Dr. Eli Lasch, former head of medical services in Gaza, warned of an imminent eruption of violence within UNRWA refugee camps back in 1987. Lasch, having observed the aftermath of the PLO’s influence within UNRWA camps in Jordan and Lebanon, underscored the organization’s reluctance to invest in improvements, leaving the refugees in a state of stagnation.
The historical context reveals a pattern of hindrance to development within UNRWA. Israeli troops entering Gaza in 1967 discovered appalling living conditions – no electricity or running water, and residents forbidden to work outside the camps during the Egyptian rule. Only when Israel assumed administrative control did these conditions begin to change.
Despite attempts to improve the refugees’ living conditions, UNRWA consistently opposed such efforts. In 1985, Israel’s initiative to resettle refugees faced resistance from UNRWA, which argued against moving them from temporary shelters, citing the questionable “inalienable right of return.”
Fast forward to today, and UNRWA’s refugees have become unwitting pawns in a geopolitical struggle, operating under the slogan of an armed struggle for the right of return. This situation not only perpetuates a cycle of violence but also jeopardizes the well-being of over five million residents living as “refugees for perpetuity” in 59 UNRWA “temporary” camps.
Recognizing the urgency for change, Member of the Israel Knesset Parliament, Sharren Haskel, a native of Canada, has initiated a Task Force for UNRWA Policy Change. Scheduled to launch on January 2, 2024, this task force aims to unite parliamentarians and conscientious individuals globally to address the root causes of violence stemming from 75 years of what Dr. Lasch termed the “UNRWA denial of dignity” to an entire refugee population.
The call for an overhaul of UNRWA is not just a response to the current conflict but an acknowledgment of the need for a fundamental shift in policy. MK Haskel’s task force represents a step towards a more just and dignified future for those living within UNRWA’s sphere of influence. The world now watches as efforts to reform this institution unfold, with the hope of quelling the flames of violence and fostering a genuine path to peace and prosperity for the affected population.
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