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Palestinian victims of Israel sexual abuse testify at UN
Palestinians who say they suffered brutal beatings and sexual abuse in Israeli detention and at the hands of Israeli settlers have testified about their ordeals at the UN this week.
“I was humiliated and tortured,” said Said Abdel Fattah, a 28-year-old nurse detained in November 2023 near Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital, where he worked.
Fattah gave his testimony from Gaza via video link to a public hearing and spoke through an interpreter.
He described being stripped naked in the cold, suffering beatings, threats of rape and other abuse over the next two months as he was shuttled between overcrowded detention facilities.
Mohamed Matar, an occupied West Bank resident, said he suffered hours of torture at the hands of security agents and settlers and the Israeli police refused to intervene.
Israeli military investigates soldiers’ use of Palestinians as human shields: Report
The Israeli military is investigating its soldiers’ use of Palestinian civilians as human shields during operations in Gaza, it has told CNN.
It is the military’s first admission that there is “reasonable suspicion” this could have taken place, the US news channel reported.
“In several cases, the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division opened investigations after reasonable suspicion arose regarding the use of Palestinians for military missions during the operations,” the Israeli military was quoted as saying by CNN.
While the scale and scope are still being investigated, the practice has likely occurred across the besieged Strip, the outlet reported.
An Israeli soldier told CNN last year that his unit had forced a Palestinian man to enter a building before troops.
“If there are any booby traps, they will explode and not us,” he told the outlet at the time, a practice so common the Israeli military calls it the “mosquito protocol”, CNN reported.
Al Jazeera has documented several occurrences of Palestinians being used as human shields in the occupied West Bank:
