[immibis]

Sure. Just look at how they're doing now: they have the full support of the world to re-invade Gaza, and this can be justified by the fact that no Jews live there (Just look three comments above yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45932249 )

If there were Israeli Jews (I am not referring to the religious group, but by which side of the conflict people are on) living in Gaza, such arguments wouldn't work, just like they don't work for the West Bank (which is also getting genocided but we're not talking about it, so maybe that strategy works too).

[vladgur]

Lets make the order of operatons clear.

1) Hamas started a war with Israel by invading it, slaughtering and raping hundreds of civilians at the music festival and in their homes as well as taking hundreds of civilians hostage, including as we all know an toddlers, womens and elderly.

2) Israel in order to rescue its citizens as well as protect them from future attacked invaded Gaza and attacked Hammas and its infrastructure

So yeah, it makes sense to support the country trying to rescue its hostages from an enemy government.

We can debate how Israel prosecutes the war, but its a war that Hamas started and yet in your accusation of Israel above there is no mention of role Gazan goverment -- Hamas -- played in this war.

I doubt that my country -- the US -- would prosecute the war any better, had it been invaded by thousands of Mexican federales killing 42,000 people -- an equivalent of population the city of Cupertino where Apple is headquartered -- while kidnapping 9,000 of our citizens. I doubt any country would do better as a matter of fact.

[C6JEsQeQa5fCjE]

> Hamas started a war with Israel by invading it, slaughtering and raping hundreds of civilians at the music festival and in their homes

Could you provide conclusive evidence for that? Could you provide even cases of formally filed rape allegations? [1] Yes I know that a lot of Israeli media people made the accusation, but there's no reason to repeat something that no proof was given for.

[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250106-no-rape-allegatio...

[vladgur]

I find middleeastmonitor.com an extremely biased anti-israeli propaganda piece that makes BBC seem like an unbiased news organization.

If you search for the name "Moran Gaz" used in this article to conclude that "Gaz stated that her department has found no evidence of sexual violence" is actually not true and is Moran's statements were quite nuanced:

" In the end, we have no complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will ultimately emerge will be completely different. Either because the victims were murdered, or because the women who were raped by them are not prepared to reveal it. We contacted women's rights organizations and asked for cooperation. They told us that they simply did not contact them. There were parents who contacted the organizations and asked what to do if something happened to their daughter, but they did not disclose the abuse...I know there is public expectation and understand the need to address the horrific sexual crimes and sexual assaults that have been committed, but the vast majority of them will not be able to meet the threshold of proof in court, and the criticism will ultimately come to the prosecutor's office – unjustly. "

>> Either because the victims were murdered, or because the women who were raped by them are not prepared to reveal it.

>> We contacted women's rights organizations and asked for cooperation. They told us that they simply did not contact them.

This reads entirely different that what that article from MiddleEastMonitor.com leads you to believe. The way its titled and the way you interpreted is there were no sexual assaults, only slaughter, only murders.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_gender-based_violen...

Or if you read Hebrew (i dont): https://archive.ph/yEKjp

[vladgur]

Im not going to engage in "Hamas slaughered festival goers on camera, killed a father in front of his kids, while blowing out one their eyes and kidnapped toddlers, but we will question the sex crimes being committed".

Is protecting the killers of families, babies and kidnappers of toddlers from accusations of sexual assault really the proverbial "hill you want to die on"?

Lets focus on order of operatons:

1) Hamas started a war

2) Israel responded in order to free its citizens and protect from future attacks.

[_zagj]

> Could you provide conclusive evidence for that? Could you provide even cases of formally filed rape allegations?

It's pretty crazy how far the Overton Window has shifted on Jews. We went from it being prima facie evidence of antisemitism to even "notice" their disproportionate influence on, or over-representation in, certain American institutions, like the Supreme Court--as shown when Pat Buchanan got soft-canceled for noting that Kagan's confirmation would make Jews a full 1/3 of Justices, despite being only 2% of the population--to it now being acceptable to outright deny war crimes committed against Israelis.

[C6JEsQeQa5fCjE]

It is important to distinguish between Jews and Israelis, as there is a significant portion of Jewish people who are leading the fight for truth about what Israel is and what Israel does.

To address your comment, Israelis have been caught lying so many times that now when they make a claim, it is on them to prove that the claim is correct, rather than on others to prove that it is not. Just a few examples off the top of my head include:

- The killing of medical workers in a convoy of ambulances and burying them in shallow graves, then lying about doing it until someone dug the bodies up and found footage confirming that they lied on the phone of one of the buried aid workers. [1]

- The hunting down and killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers via multiple air strikes [2]. This was repeatedly denied by Israelis until too much evidence was stacked up and they settled for "it was a grave mistake".

- The high profile case of killing of Hind Rajab [3] who for a brief period of time was the sole survivor of a tank attack in a shelled vehicle filled with her dead family members. Aid workers were dispatched to rescue here, coordinated with Israelis. Neither the girl nor the aid workers were ever seen alive after that. Israelis repeatedly insisted that there were no troops in the area, until too much evidence was stacked again.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/middleeast/gaza-isr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Central_Kitchen_aid_conv...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Hind_Rajab

[yoavm]

There's a UN report on it:

https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15621.doc.htm

This was the conclusion of both UN and EU committees:

"the two groups' fighters "committed widespread sexual and gender-based violence in a systematic manner, using it as a weapon of war""

"In July 2025, Hamas was added to the UN's sexual violence blacklist"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_and_gender-based_violen...

As well as individual research:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/18/evidence-point...

And even interviews with the fighters themselves in which the admit it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On0SINArclQ

Asking why there are no filled allegation is as ignorant as suggesting that no Palestinian home was destroyed because no Palestinian appealed to Palestinian court suing Israeli soldiers for destroying their home. You clearly don't understand how the system works.

[C6JEsQeQa5fCjE]

Hi, your mention of the UN report made me look at the actual report in an effort to find the truth of the matter. So let's go deeper into the UN report as it's often cited as a proof of rape, but as we'll see by the end of it, there isn't actually any evidence for it other than "people said" (for more context of why I'm dismissing this, look at the points below and especially at the end of this post). Please do double-check and correct me if I reach a wrong conclusion somewhere. Here's the link to the full report by Pramila Patten published around early March 2024: [1].

The key points based on which I say that there is no proper evidence are the following:

> 34. The mission team, specifically the forensic pathologist and the digital analyst, reviewed over 5,000 photos, around 50 hours and several audio files of footage of the attacks, provided partly by various state agencies and through an independent online review of various open sources, to identify potential instances and indications of conflict-related sexual violence.

So there is plenty of photo and video material from surveillance devices. Good. But, we have a few lines mentioning something very similar to this:

> 16. [...] With respect to the latter instance, while the forensic analysis reviewed injuries to intimate body parts, no discernible pattern could be identified, against either female or male soldiers.

Further searching of the word "forensic" reveals nothing conclusive about rape. Just notes that there were injuries to intimate body parts, which is expected when bodies are blown up by tank and helicopter fire (which was confirmed to have happened during the fighting). The report does not comment whether the injuries were inflicted specifically by hand-to-hand combat weapons and small personal arms.

Now, searching for the word rape, it appears throughout the report, but only ever to point out that "there are reasons to believe that it happened", but no proof is ever given, only statements by other people. A reminder that there is a lot of surveillance photo and video material, but none of it supported the claims. For example:

> 74. In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified. Further investigation may alter this assessment in the future.

And an example of rescue teams' statements that are used as sources for the accusations:

> 13. At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or gang rape and then killed or killed while being raped. Credible sources described finding 5 murdered individuals, mostly women, whose bodies were naked from their waist down – and some totally naked – tied with their hands behind their backs, many of whom were shot in the head.

Please let me know if you find something in the report that represents credible evidence of rape. I'd like to see it because I care about the truth. We know that Israel rapes Palestinians in their torture prisons because we have not only victim testimonies (that we ultimately cannot take as solid proof even if they are true), but we have actual video evidence that was released of them doing that to a prisoner on surveillance camera footage. And there is an ongoing trial where the rapists are parading around the media in Israel and proudly defending their rights to torture prisoners, including via rape. And unfortunately they have a lot of support in the country. So if Palestinian resistance fighters did the same, I want to know. But we'll need proper evidence.

One final question remains to be answered here -- why don't I think that Israelis making these claims should simply be believed? Because they lied so many times that now when Israelis make a claim, it is on them to prove that the claim is correct, rather than on others to prove that it is not. Just a few examples off the top of my head include:

- The killing of medical workers in a convoy of ambulances and burying them in shallow graves, then lying about doing it until someone dug the bodies up and found footage confirming that they lied on the phone of one of the buried aid workers. [2]

- The hunting down and killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers via multiple air strikes [3]. This was repeatedly denied by Israelis until too much evidence was stacked up and they settled for "it was a grave mistake".

- The high profile case of killing of Hind Rajab [4] who for a brief period of time was the sole survivor of a tank attack in a shelled vehicle filled with her dead family members. Aid workers were dispatched to rescue here, coordinated with Israelis. Neither the girl nor the aid workers were ever seen alive after that. Israelis repeatedly insisted that there were no troops in the area, until too much evidence was stacked again.

As for your video of an alleged pPlestinian fighter admitting to atrocities with an Israeli flag behind him, we obviously cannot take seriously a statement made in imprisonment, highly likely obtained under torture, given the vast evidence of torture (including actual rape) being conducted in Israeli prisons.

[1] https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploa...

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/middleeast/gaza-isr...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Central_Kitchen_aid_conv...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Hind_Rajab

[yoavm]

No, you are spreading lies. I won't engage any further but I'll just say that there is absolutely no video evidence, not even one, showing a rape of a Palestinian by Israeli soldiers. What there is is a video that shows Israeli soldiers standing around and beating a Palestinian prisoner, that happened to be a Hamas police-officer. The video is very unclear.

The vast majority of the discussion in Israel isn't around the the right to torture prisoners (I have actually never heard anyone argue that). That's also a lie. The discussion is around whether or not it happened.

The usage of rape as part of Palestinian resistance isn't exactly a new thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Ori_Ansbacher

The main difference is that in Israel, people who are suspected in doing such things would be trialed, and if found guilty, sent to jail. That's true by the way not specifically for rape, but also for harming a Palestinian in any other ways. Trails against settlers violence, for example, take place all the time. Yes, much more needs to be done, but it happens. On the Palestinian side, however, I cannot recall a single case of Palestinian facing legal charges for ever harming a Jew, and it's not because it never happens.

Does Israel have a perfect legal system? Absolutely not. But it has a system that has put many Israelis behind bars, while the Palestinian Authority usually pays compensation for those who blew up civilian buses when I was child.