Transcript:
Israeli hostages. Israeli hostages. Israeli hostages… Israeli hostages. Israeli hostages.
The mainstream media continues its hyper fixation on Israeli hostages, while predictably the reality of thousands of Palestinian hostages is not of concern.
Since far before October 7th, since 1967 to be exact, Israel has arrested and detained over 800,000 Palestinians, about 20% of the total Palestinian population in the occupied territories, and 40% of all Palestinian men.
Those who weren’t detained administratively were charged in the sham that is the Israeli military court system, which produces a conviction rate of 99.7%. For the occupation, imprisonment has always served as a primary tactic in the thwarting of resistance.
Therefore, this number always skyrockets during major moments of popular resistance and revolt.
For example, during the first Intifada, Israel had the highest per capita prison population in the entire world. However, the post October 7th reality is something that Palestinians have never experienced before. Over 9,000 Palestinians currently languish in Israeli prisons and makeshift detention camps.
According to Tal Steiner, the executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, this is a 100% increase from recent years.
Reports of torture in Israeli detention in the last eight months have included practices long used by Israeli intelligence, but escalated to the extreme. The harshness of this treatment, however, has been reserved for Gazan hostages swept up by the Israeli military during its genocidal operations across the Strip.
From the little we know now, at least 35 Gazan detainees alone have been killed in Israeli detention, but much is yet to be uncovered. This torture has reportedly included physical beatings, the prolonged use of tight handcuffs, causing injuries routinely resulting in amputations, the increased use of sexual assault, attacks by dogs, electric shock, forced sleep deprivation, denial to access to toilets and showers, and the denial of the right to practice their religion.
The subject of prisoners in particular has exposed the double standards and blatant racism in Western mainstream spaces, who not only ignore the plight of the Palestinian hostages, but justify the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians to secure the release of Israeli hostages.
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