Troops humiliate Palestinians swept up in West Bank raid by referring to them only by their numbers instead of by name

When Israel re-arrested Palestinian men in the occupied West Bank town of Dura, the detainees faced familiar treatment.

They were blindfolded, handcuffed, insulted and kept in inhumane conditions. More unusual was that each man had a number written on his forehead.

Osama Shaheen, who was released in August after 10 months of administrative detention, told Middle East Eye that soldiers brutally stormed his house, smashing his furniture.

“The soldiers turned us from names into numbers, and every detainee had a number that they used to provoke him during his arrest and call him by number instead of name. To them, we are just numbers.”

  • @TheFonz
    -4•19 days ago

    Every single day heinous actions by the IDF are being reported in mainstream news. You’re straight lying or stuck in online echo chambers. The fact that this comment has any up votes is really frightening.

    • @Dasus
      1•18 days ago

      Every single day heinous actions by the IDF are being reported in mainstream news. You’re straight lying or stuck in online echo chambers.

      You’re arguing that this headline is biased against Israel, yet your implication here is “Israel’s heinous actions are being reported so there can’t be a bias against Israel.”

      https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/2/over-100-staff-accuse-bbc-of-bias-in-its-coverage-of-israels-war-in-gaza

      The BBC has been accused by more than 100 of its staff of giving Israel favourable coverage in its reporting of the war on Gaza and criticised for its lack of “accurate evidence-based journalism”.

      A letter sent to the broadcaster’s director general, Tim Davie, and CEO Deborah Turness on Friday said: “Basic journalistic tenets have been lacking when it comes to holding Israel to account for its actions.”

      “The consequences of inadequate coverage are significant. Every television report, article and radio interview that has failed to robustly challenge Israeli claims has systematically dehumanised Palestinians,” the letter said.

      Someone is reporting according to journalistic standards what is literally and actually happening, which is the everyday dehumanisation of Palestinians through acts like drawing a huge number on their foreheads and calling them only using it instead of their name. And you’re making a huge deal about the reporting being biased and deceptive, when it’s neither of those things. And definitely not everyone on this comment thread is taking the “branding” to mean “burning with a hot iron”.

      We need to robustly challenge Israel’s dehumanisation of Palestinians. I think to do that requires us not to whinge about a headline when it doesn’t fill some weird linguistic purity standard in your head where “branding” can only mean ‘burning with a hot iron’."