Worldwide anger over shocking pictures of Israeli soldiers posing with dead Palestinians
Instituto Manquehue – Earlier
today I commented about Israeli Abu Ghraib style pictures – now a new
set of photographs, taken by Israeli troopers and border guards, have
hit the internet, featuring the servicemen posing next to dead
Palestinians.
The pictures, published by the Israeli human rights group, Breaking the Silence,
on the internet social hub of Facebook on Tuesday also showed the
Israeli soldiers wearing smiles in cases, while striking a figure beside
bound and blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, some of them dead, Israeli
website Ynetnews reported.
The photos unpleasantly remind the pictures taken by US forces at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The group circulated the
pictures after a former female Israeli soldier caused a furor by posting
similar images of herself onto Facebook, appearing boldly next to
Palestinian captives, similarly handcuffed and forced to wear
blindfolds.
“The new campaign came into
being in the wake of the publication of (soldier) Eden Abergil’s photos,
in order to show the prevalence of this phenomenon among (Israel
Defense Forces) IDF ranks,” Breaking the Silence said.
Abergil, who was relieved of
her duties a year ago, had posted the pictures under the album name
“Army… the best time of my life:).”
“The photographs that had been
published are merely the tip of the iceberg. Many people possess
thousands of photos, but only a small part is being published.”
Around 7,000 Palestinians,
including women and children, are currently held in Israeli detention
facilities, reportedly suffering under harsh and life-threatening
conditions.
Reacting to Abergil’s photos, another rights body, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel,
had said, “The horrible pictures demonstrate a norm of treating
Palestinians like objects instead of human beings – treatment that
disregards their feelings as humans and their right to privacy,” the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported on Monday.
Israel claimed existence in
1948, when it occupied the Palestinian territories alongside vast
expanses of other Arab lands during full-fledged military operations.
In 1967, it went on to annex
East al-Quds (Jerusalem), which is hailed as the capital of any
potential Palestinian state, and later defied the international
community’s condemnation of its act.
Jawad Amawi, director of legal affairs for the Palestinian Authority’s prisoners ministry, has threatened to take legal action against
the former soldier’s publication of the pictures. “This is a breach of
international law, clearly a breach of human rights,” he said.
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