Gaza toddler returned with alleged torture wounds after Israeli detention
independent.co.ukhttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-toddler-released-isr...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-denies-repo... Nothing shocks anymore With all this brutality and dehumanisation, no wonder the IDF are seeing the highest rates of PTSD and suicide. Genuine question. Are you indicating the IDF are not supporters or don’t believe in what they are doing? Their actions are forced because of duty? I guess if a massacre is a massacre then it would have a high chance of affecting those involved regardless of belief. It's sort of mind-blowing to see 1940s being repeated. Of course both times the victim group were viewed as sub-human/barbaric "other"...
Before someone yells "Godwin!", read the Wikipedia page about that law, Godwin himself said it's fine to mention Nazis when it's actually a comparable thing. If you have 3 hours, there's a documentary you can watch, about a man who was part of a government-sanctioned killsquad to kill a lot of "communists" in 1960's Indonesia: The Act of Killing (available at e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TDeEObjR9Q ). It's sort of understandable why the defenders of the genocide have to keep defending it. Stopping doing so today would mean admitting that until yesterday you've been defending utter inhumanity. A review: > Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is a challenging documentary. It is not only difficult to watch, but it also probes into one of the most grotesque aspects of human nature: the capacity for self-delusion in the face of horrific atrocities. This isn’t a film about history, facts, or statistics; it’s about the memories of the men who killed, the stories they tell themselves, and how they continue to live with the horrors they’ve inflicted on others. The film’s power lies in its ability to take the viewer beyond a surface-level understanding of evil and into the psychological abyss of those who have committed atrocities—and seemingly moved on with their lives. From: https://docthisway.com/2024/09/23/the-act-of-killing-review/ What are you comparing to? The Irish military? The list keeps growing. - Flour massacre - World Central Kitchen drone strikes - Gaza aid distribution massacres - Rafah paramedics massacre - Targeting of journalists - Forced starvation - Crop destruction Israel will deny all of those. But the world have seen it with their own eyes. This has been flagged twice by people of Hackernews. I genuinely don't know how to respond to this in good faith but I will still try to do my best. Previous discussion (at edit 27 points): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47553964 Unless someone gives me a genuine reason as to why people are flagging it and the people who are flagging it can come state the reason publicly, just as how I am able to defend that this should be talked about and discussed publicly. I will continue to re-post this. I just want to raise awareness and not let censorship win. This post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post. I hope I can convey that and I hope that the streisand effect plays a part here and people become well aware of this post. @dang, can you please prevent such posts from getting flagged? Unless there is a reason as to why these might get flagged from a hackernews moderation standpoint, it feel as if a blatant misuse of the abuse feature. Have a nice day. > genuinely don't know how to respond to this in good faith Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link. Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing. > post is beyond political, its a humanitarian post If it’s not political, it’s irrelevant. Gawking at humanitarian disaster isn’t a popular pass-time outside narrow bands of the internet. If you’re posting it to effect change, it is political. That’s fine. But I’m also sceptical why this would be expected to change the balance of views on the wars in the region. IDF and Hamas—the former, probably due to resources, at larger scale than the latter—being horrible to captives is well established. This subthread was originally in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557437 before we merged the threads. (I mention this because otherwise the bit about archive links doesn't make sense.) Dang, can we post topical Ukrainian news stories now? Because it wasn't allowed for so long and all the strong wording around it not being allowed most people have probably given up, but it would be good to know if the seemingly new policy applies to all conflicts now or just Gaza/Iran seeing as you are now un-flaging conflict related threads. > Not flagging, but also not upvoting. One, it’s an ambiguous archive link This wasn't the case with the previous post that I mentioned yet it got flagged ? . Two, I’m not getting the sense that the source is unbiased [1]. For a contentious topic, I want to form my opinions—and hear those of fellow HN users—around rock-solid sourcing. When the post had gotten flagged/ I had thought of giving another link like msn (https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/gaza-toddler-released-f...) and this is a bit more in-depth (https://www.msn.com/en-us/war-and-conflicts/military/palesti...) But I found no articles as thorough as this one. I don't believe as to if anything is factually wrong Also oops, yea I had just the link of archive.org and not the proper link (https://web.archive.org/web/20260328122756/https://www.middl...) I am editing this for that, thank you for suggesting this! Edit: I can't edit the hackernews post, I am a bit sorry then to hackernews community for just sharing the archive.org link but I had accidentally pasted just the archive link instead, a bit sorry about that, perhaps moderators (if they wish) can change to this particular link or if someone wants to read it: https://web.archive.org/web/20260328122756/https://www.middl... > I found no articles as thorough as this one. I don't believe as to if anything is factually wrong Did a physician ever evaluate the child? And were the neighbours’ accounts that the child was unharmed when handed over by the father to the IDF independently verified? Torturing a toddler wouldn’t be out of character for the IDF right now. But just because something is believable doesn’t mean it’s true. The fact that nobody else is reporting on this should be cause for pause. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/gaza-to... There are details here including quotations from an unnamed doctor. If feel you can't trust the media credentials of the Independent, you could contact them for the identity of the unnamed doctor (who they are likely protecting based on the nature of the conflict) and ask them directly. The doctor is named in the article now, perhaps as part of a later edit. Since people are questioning the objectivity of the other domain, we'll use this link you found for the merged thread. I'll put the original link in the top text. Naming the doctor adds nothing. It’s a doctor from Gaza with an Islamic name, and presumably at a hospital in an area controlled by Hamas. Without an independent doctor, whose traits don’t make them biased on this conflict, how can such claims accepted without more scrutiny? All we have to go on are the photos. And they seem more randomly shaped like shrapnel wounds than the round mark cigarette burns leave. > Naming the doctor adds nothing. It’s a doctor from Gaza with an Islamic name, and presumably at a hospital in an area controlled by Hamas All of this requires substantiation. Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible. > how can such claims accepted without more scrutiny? What does "accepted" mean in this context? I'm forming a personal opinion. Based on the preponderance of evidence–evidence you'll see, in this very thread, I was earlier sceptical of–it looks like serious people are putting their names to the opinion that this toddler was tortured. > Without it, a named medical professional rendering a medical opinion is credible. That’s your opinion. I disagree. It’s not credible, because being a “professional” does not mean you are capable of ignoring your own biases, especially when they run deep as they do in this particular conflict. I’ll also point out that the medical opinion you’re referring to lacks any actual details. For example - if the injuries are consistent with a cigarette burn, what specifically makes it “consistent” and how does this medical professional differentiate this possibility from all the other ones? Why is anything substantial conveniently omitted from all these stories, which instead all use the vague phrasing of “consistent with”? Why are there no details on this doctor, where they practice, or their credentials anywhere? And we should only trust Israel that never lies? Did you investigate it? If someone posted that Claude code created a new language that was typesafe and 50% more efficient for LLM coding and 20% faster for a human to review without any details about the language, would you not look it up? No knock on you directly, just an observation about the attitude in our culture. If this is true a child was tortured, if it's false someone is lying and needs to be outed (with facts) so they are not trusted. Neither one is good but is no one looking into it? > Did you investigate it? Nope. Rejecting a source doesn’t mean I am obligated to investigate it. As I said, whether this is true or not doesn’t seem particularly politically relevant. It would be interesting to know. But purely for curiosity, not because I think it will have practical effects. Because the lies are constant, relentless and the use and abuse of civilians by the islamo supremacists and the facist supporters is well documented. Its also just the fact, that a ton of things that chomsky and co supported turned out to be vile, evil and mean landempires using emotional stories to "hack" the downtrodden and hopeless of the west. The support for russias invasion comes to mind and honestly it tainted all the stories told in a similar way by parties on the same side. Sometimes, evil things just run out of credits and the mask drops. And yes, you can be poor, a underdog and still be evil. And yes you can have a volksturm and hitleryouth die in droves and still be evil. The site moderators have said that they do not see @ mentions. If you want to reach them, use the email address on the contact page linked at the bottom of the page. Re-submitting links to try to force attention to it is also not the correct approach. If you believe a story has been wrongly flagged, directly email the HN administrators with a link to the original submission. This is not the right forum for this discussion. Flagging is exactly the correct response. It’s being flagged because it is one sided propaganda without any hard evidence of the claims being made. It follows a pattern of dubious claims being spread by pro Palestine news outlets until it then get picked up by others. All built on one unsubstantiated claim at the bottom of it. >"The claims that the IDF abused a toddler are completely unfounded and serve Hamas propaganda." The spokesperson said. >"On the contrary: The toddler was brought by a Hamas operative into a dangerous area to be used as a human shield. Same old denials as usual, aren't they getting tired? These spokespersons don't know anything, their only job is to deny that anything happened. Which does work a lot if there are no witnesses or video. Same deal with the ambulances or journalists like Shireen Abu Akleh. Deny. Deflect. Gaslight. Obfuscate. And if irrefutable evidence emerges, they deserved it. Weaponised narcissism by a country. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO). Apropos: 'Iran and Gaza Are ONLY THE BEGINNING' (Chris Hedges at Princeton) March 2026 Well that was depressing. While I already held these opinions I had some hope that what I believed wasn't true, because I didn't like what that would say about the us. A lot of people are going to have their 'are we the baddies?' moment in the near future. “HonestReporting or Honest Reporting is an Israeli media advocacy group” [1]. Well, TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel and in favor of Islamism. It’s a propaganda outlet for Erdogan. Other outlets repeating it - Al Jazeera, Middle East Eye, etc - are all propaganda outlets and extremely biased on the topic of Israel and Gaza. And Honest Reporting’s description of this situation seems accurate. What evidence is there really? It seems like one person’s claim is being laundered through many pro Palestine news outlets. That’s basically what this Honest Reporting article says, and that part seems irrefutable. > TRT World, who spread this story, is extremely biased against Israel Sure. I called that out, too [1]. Two bad sources doesn't a good source make [2]. > in favor of Islamism Islamism in its formal sense [3] falls into the same category as Christian nationalism in Europe and America, Hindutva in India and the current governing ideology of Israel's government. I am not personally in favor of marrying religion and politics. But I'm not going to discard someone's opinion about something just because they believe that. > What evidence is there really? The Independent quotes a named doctor. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47557483 > Two bad sources doesn't a good source make I agree with the principle. However, the Honest Reporting article isn’t actually making any particular claim and isn’t a “source” in the same way, right? Their article is just pointing out the flaws in the widely-circulated claims from pro-Palestine news media and reasons to be skeptical of those claims. As for your comparison of Islamism to others - I feel it goes too far in framing these various movements as the same, as these all are different in their goals and the level of intolerance against other beliefs. One key difference - Islamism (the political movement) is much more prevalent among Muslims than Christian nationalism is among Christians. And it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely. Sam Harris has spoken about this in length if you want to hear it from others. Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness”. The recent reframing of “Hinduness” into a pejorative is just a vague racist-tinged political attack against a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers. The intersection of many eastern religions with politics, to whatever extent they exist, are far less of a threat to free societies than the supremacist versions of Christianity and Islam. > it preaches the erasure of all other religions entirely Within their relevant geographies, so does, it seems, the other movements. I agree that Islamism is currently more in power and more violent, extreme and ridiculous than those others. But again, I’m not discarding anything they say as a result of it. > Hindutva isn’t the same as either Islamism or Christian nationalism, since it literally means “Hinduness” As it’s practiced it has involved excusing and in many cases encouraging murderous riots. (Islamism parsed literally also sounds innocuous.) > a long-colonized people (Indians) trying to keep their culture from being erased by other powers This is revanchism. All extremists do it. Islamists and Christian nationalists want a return of their golden ages. Ok, I've added that link to the toptext as well. Add this https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-denies-repo... while you are at it Ok that seems like a better source than the GP link so I've replaced it above. Thanks.