Friday, August 29, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

IDF accused of sexual abuse of prisoners

The situation in Gaza

Published 11 August 2024
– By Editorial Staff
Images from the camp's surveillance camera.
2 minute read

A leaked surveillance video published in several Israeli media outlets appears to show IDF soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian prisoner. The man was subsequently hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, including to his rectum.

The assault reportedly took place at the Sde Teiman base in the Negev desert, and a group of prisoners can be seen lying on the ground while several soldiers are seen taking one of the prisoners to a corner of the facility to apparently assault him, while other Israeli soldiers use shields to block the view. Notably, the IDF also confirms that several soldiers are under investigation for “suspected substantial abuse” of a Palestinian prisoner, and that the military police are formally investigating the allegations.

According to Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), the victim – a man in his 30s – was then taken to an Israeli public hospital with life-threatening injuries, including severe injuries to his upper body and rectum, according to CNN.

They also explain that they had expressed concern about reports of similar abuses in the past – but that this incident was publicized precisely because the victim was taken to a regular hospital, far from the detention camp.

Recently, the UN Human Rights Office also raised the alarm that Palestinian prisoners from Gaza and the West Bank are frequently subjected to torture, beatings and sexual abuse – and that at least 53 of them have died in captivity since October 7.

“Hugely damaged Israel internationally”

Israeli Finance Minister and Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich, however, is more upset that the abuses have come to public attention and is calling for an “immediate criminal investigation” of the whistleblower, saying the leak has “hugely damaged Israel internationally”.

In May, it was reported that former employees of the camp had warned of systematic mistreatment of detainees, who were left with festering wounds, not allowed to speak to each other, forced to wear diapers, tied to their beds and forced to eat with straws.

The US State Department calls the allegations of sexual abuse of prisoners “horrific” – but says Israel should investigate them on its own, without outside interference.

– There ough to be zero tolerance for all sexual abuse, rape, of any detainee, period, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said during a press briefing.

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Photojournalist leaves Reuters in protest: “Western media enable Israel’s journalist killings”

The genocide in Gaza

Published today 7:35
– By Editorial Staff
Zink states that significantly more journalists have been killed in Gaza than during both world wars - and argues that Israel is deliberately murdering reporters.
2 minute read

After eight years, Canadian photojournalist Valerie Zink is resigning from news agency Reuters. She accuses Western media of systematically spreading Israeli government propaganda and of enabling the murders of 245 journalists in Gaza so far.

Valerie Zink published a striking Facebook post on Monday explaining that she can no longer work for Reuters. The decision comes after five journalists, including Reuters’ own cameraman Hossam al-Masri, were killed in an Israeli attack on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.

“At this point it’s become impossible for me to maintain a relationship with Reuters given its role in justifying and enabling the systematic assassination of 245 journalists in Gaza”, Zink writes.

She directs very harsh criticism at how Western media has handled reporting from Gaza, particularly the case of Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif who was killed earlier in August.

“Reuters chose to publish Israel’s entirely baseless claim that Al-Sharif was a Hamas operative”, she writes, pointing out that the reporter’s work had previously won a Pulitzer Prize for Reuters itself.

“Reuters’ willingness to perpetuate Israel’s propaganda has not spared their own reporters from Israel’s genocide”, Zink continues in her post.

“Repeats Israel’s genocidal lies”

Zink accuses Western media of “repeating Israel’s genocidal fabrications without determining if they have any credibility” – and thereby abandoning the most basic journalistic principles.

She emphasizes that this submissive attitude from establishment media has “made possible the killing of more journalists in two years on one tiny strip of land than in WWI, WWII, and the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, and Ukraine combined, to say nothing of starving an entire population, shredding its children, and burning people alive”.

The attack on Nasser Hospital is described as an example of a “double tap” attack, where Israel first bombs a civilian target and then strikes again when rescue personnel and journalists have arrived at the scene.

“Western media is directly culpable for creating the conditions in which this can happen. As Jeremy Scahill from Drop Site News put it, ‘every major outlet – from the New York Times to the Washington Post, from AP to Reuters – has served as a conveyor belt for Israeli propaganda, sanitizing war crimes and dehumanizing victims, abandoning their colleagues and their alleged commitment to true and ethical reporting'”, she continues.

“I can’t conceive of wearing this press pass with anything but deep shame and grief”, Zink concludes her post, calling the journalists in Gaza “the bravest and best to ever live”.

Swedish pensions finance Israeli white phosphorus manufacturer

The situation in Gaza

Published 22 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
An Israeli M109 Doher fires a shell. The self-propelled artillery system is one of several that can fire ammunition containing white phosphorus.
2 minute read

Sjunde AP-fonden (Seventh AP Fund) owns shares worth €9 million in Israeli ICL Group, which manufactures white phosphorus. Human rights organizations have long warned about the company’s links to war crimes against civilians – and now the fund’s officials claim they will review the investment.

Swedish public radio Sveriges Radio Ekot reveals that Swedish pension funds are invested in the Israeli company ICL Group, a manufacturer of white phosphorus that has previously received harsh criticism from several human rights organizations.

The investigation shows that the Seventh AP Fund (one of Sweden’s national pension funds) owns shares worth €9 million in the company. During 2025, the pension fund’s holdings have also increased from 1.2 million to 1.6 million shares.

White phosphorus may be used in conflict zones under international law to illuminate targets or create smoke screens. However, the substance is prohibited for use in ammunition near civilians as it causes severe burns.

Israel has been accused by several human rights organizations of using white phosphorus in densely populated areas during attacks in Gaza. According to the radio station, it is not established whether phosphorus from ICL Group specifically was used in these attacks, but the company has previously listed the U.S. Army – which has close cooperation with Israel – as a customer.

“Difficult to verify”

Mikael Lindh Hök, communications director at the Seventh AP Fund, says that they do not plan to immediately sell the holdings, but that the investment will be reviewed.

— If it’s true and you can actually verify that their product, in this case white phosphorus, is used by the Israeli military in the conflicts, then that is grounds for blacklisting, as it constitutes a violation of human rights, he says.

Lindh Hök simultaneously points to the difficulties in obtaining evidence.

— But there we have the problem that it has been very difficult to verify this, as there are contradictory reports. No one has admitted, so to speak, that they have used it. But if we manage to get it verified, then that is grounds for exclusion.

Amnesty: Suspicions are enough

He emphasizes that the fund manages money for six million Swedes and therefore requires clear evidence before acting.

— Then we want to get it verified so that it doesn’t become arbitrary. Sometimes it can be a rumor that a company has violated something, and then it later emerges that it hasn’t violated an international convention. And since we are the default option for six million Swedes, we have set the threshold at: what international conventions has Sweden signed? he explains further.

Astri Sjoner, political advisor at Norwegian Amnesty, believes that the suspicions alone should be enough to act.

— Now several parties have pointed out that they suspect it is this company’s white phosphorus that has been used in Israel’s warfare in Gaza. When there is this type of suspicion, it is important that those who invest in it take on extra responsibility to assess the risk of human rights violations.

Secret propaganda unit justifies Israel’s journalist killings

The genocide in Gaza

Published 20 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Between 186 and 270 journalists are reported to have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 - more than in any other war.
4 minute read

Israel operates a secret military unit whose task is to find or create connections between journalists and Hamas to legitimize deadly attacks.

Intelligence sources tell the Israeli publications +972 Magazine and Local Call how the unit manipulates and distorts intelligence material as international criticism of journalist killings increases.

The so-called “legitimization unit” was established after Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023. According to three intelligence sources who confirmed the unit’s existence, its main task is not security but pure PR – to try by all means to justify Israel’s warfare in Gaza as international criticism grows.

The unit works systematically to find or create narratives that can defend Israeli military operations and bombings: evidence of Hamas’ use of civilian buildings, documentation of failed Palestinian rocket launches that killed their own civilians, and above all – attempts to smear journalists reporting from Gaza by linking them to Hamas.

An intelligence source reveals the unit’s cynical method: When international criticism against Israel increases, the unit is ordered to produce intelligence material that can be used to silence the criticism.

— If the global media is talking about Israel killing innocent journalists, then immediately there’s a push to find one journalist who might not be so innocent – as if that somehow makes killing the other 20 acceptable, says the source.

Fabricated accusations

It is Israel’s political leadership that directs the unit’s priorities, and the information is used strategically to secure continued American support. Intelligence officers have been explicitly told that their work is crucial for being able to prolong the war.

— The team regularly collected intelligence that could be used for hasbara – say, a stockpile of  weapons in a school — anything that could bolster Israel’s international legitimacy to keep fighting. The idea was to allow the military to operate without pressure, so countries like America wouldn’t stop supplying weapons, explains a source.

The unit has repeatedly manipulated or fabricated intelligence to portray journalists as legitimate military targets. In at least one documented case, they tried to falsely present a journalist as a Hamas operative.

— They were eager to label him as a target, as a terrorist – to say it’s okay to attack him. They said: during the day he’s a journalist, at night he’s a platoon commander, reports a source.

The journalist is said to have been saved only because the manipulation was discovered before any attack could be carried out.

Systematic manipulation

The manipulation continued with Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif, who was killed in August after a coordinated smear campaign. The “evidence” the army presented showed activity that had ceased in 2017 – long before the current war. Despite this, the documents were used to justify his execution.

The same applies to the case of journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in July 2024 along with his cameraman in Gaza City.

A month later, the army claimed he was an “military wing operative and Nukhba terrorist”, referring to a document from 2021 allegedly retrieved from a “Hamas computer.” But that document stated he received his military rank in 2007 – when he was only 10 years old, and seven years before he was allegedly recruited to Hamas.

Deadliest war for journalists

The unit’s work also became evident after the controversial explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in October 2023. To deflect blame from Israel, the army released what they claimed was an intercepted conversation between Hamas members.

A Palestinian human rights activist was shocked when he recognized his own voice – from a completely harmless conversation with a friend. He had never been a Hamas member, but his voice was used to manipulate world opinion.

— It’s very much not in Unit 8200’s DNA to expose our capabilities for something as vague as public opinion, admits a source about the desperate and internally criticized publication.

The result of this systematic disinformation campaign is devastating for reporters on the ground: So far, at least 186 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 according to the Committee to Protect Journalists – the deadliest period for journalists anywhere in modern history.

Other organizations have made higher estimates and claim that nearly 300 journalists have been killed during the Israeli invasion – journalists who were often singled out as militants or terrorists, but where concrete evidence for this has rarely been presented.

Record number of aid workers killed in 2024 – half in Gaza

The genocide in Gaza

Published 20 August 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Aid workers from UNRWA in Gaza, where nearly half of this year's 383 killed aid workers lost their lives.
3 minute read

383 aid workers were killed in the world’s crisis zones during 2024, the highest number ever recorded. Nearly half of them fell victim during the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

The figures were presented on Tuesday by the UN’s humanitarian office OCHA on World Humanitarian Day – the annual day to honor people who risk their lives to help others in crisis situations.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher calls the development a wake-up call and demands that the international community act to protect both civilians and aid workers.

— Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy, Fletcher said in a statement.

According to the Aid Worker Security Database, which has compiled statistics since 1997, the number of killed aid workers increased from 293 in 2023 to 383 in 2024. Over 180 of these were killed in Gaza.

Most victims were local staff who were attacked either while working or in their homes. Many were working to help their own communities when they were killed.

No improvement in sight

A total of 599 major attacks against aid workers were reported last year, a sharp increase from 420 attacks the year before. In addition to those killed, 308 aid workers were injured, 125 were kidnapped, and 45 were imprisoned.

Developments so far this year show no signs of improvement. During the past seven-plus months, 245 major attacks have already taken place and 265 aid workers have been killed.

One of the year’s most horrific incidents occurred in Rafah in southern Gaza on March 23. Israeli troops opened fire before dawn and killed 15 healthcare workers and rescue workers who were traveling in clearly marked vehicles. The troops then drove bulldozers over the bodies and destroyed vehicles and buried everything in a mass grave. UN and rescue workers could not reach the site until a week later.

— Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve. Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end, Tom Fletcher said.

Government forces most common perpetrators

Violence against aid workers increased in 21 countries during 2024. According to the database, government forces and their allies were the most common perpetrators.

The Palestinian territories top the grim statistics with 194 major attacks, followed by Sudan with 64, South Sudan with 47, Nigeria with 31, and Congo with 27.

Regarding the number of killed, Sudan comes in second place after Gaza and the West Bank. 60 aid workers were killed there during 2024, more than double the 25 deaths the year before. The civil war in the country continues to rage.

Also in Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah fought a war last year, 20 aid workers were killed – compared to none at all in 2023. Ethiopia and Syria each had 14 killed, roughly double the previous year. In Ukraine, 13 aid workers were killed, up from 6 in 2023.

— As the humanitarian community, we demand – again – that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account, and hold perpetrators accountable, Tom Fletcher said.

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