This Week in Palestine: Israeli Forces Allegedly Torture Gaza Toddler to Force His Father to Confess
Zeteo's weekly round-up of the stories you may have missed out of occupied Gaza and the West Bank, as Israel continues its genocidal war and apartheid policies.
Israeli forces allegedly tortured a 1-year-old boy in Gaza to coerce a confession from his father – and the story barely got any media coverage at all.
A leading UN expert said Israel is systematically torturing Palestinians. Most Western media didn’t seem to care.
These are just two stories from this week in Palestine – a week defined by torture – that likely wouldn’t have gotten much Western media attention even if the US wasn’t pursuing an illegal war, ICE wasn’t in US airports, and Donald Trump wasn’t spewing out his latest lies. But they’re stories, like the rest below, we at Zeteo didn’t miss, and are exactly why we launched this project a few weeks ago.
A quick note before we jump into this week: For now, we’re sending ‘This Week in Palestine’ to all Zeteo subscribers, but that won’t always be the case. To ensure you get the newsletter every week, go to ‘manage subscription’ in your Substack account, scroll down, and toggle on the button for ‘This Week in Palestine’. Please make sure you’re a paid Zeteo subscriber so you can read past the paywall.
Now, here’s another troubling ‘This Week in Palestine’:
Sunday, March 22 – Israel ‘Tortured’ 1-Year-Old Boy to Get Confession From Father, Family Says
Palestine journalist Osama Khalout reported that the family of 21-month-old Jawad Abu Nassar said they believe the toddler was tortured by Israeli forces to coerce a confession out of his father.
Israeli forces took the child after arresting his father, Osama, near the so-called yellow line near Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp earlier this month. When Israel returned Jawad 10 hours later (a return Israeli forces filmed), his family noticed his pants were bloody, and he had marks on his legs.
“I observed multiple deep uniform lesions on his lower body, which are clinically consistent with deliberate cigarette burns used as a form of physical torture,” Dr. Bisan Ahmed, who conducted the examination of Jawad, told Sky News.
Israel denied the claims, suggesting to Sky News that the child may have suffered light injuries in the gunfire they claimed was directed towards the father and son in an attempt to get them to turn around. They also claimed Osama confessed to being a member of Hamas, and ridiculously said he was using his son as a “human shield.”
Osama remains in Israeli custody.