Category: Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠

JERUSALEM, Aug 6 (Reuters) – Israel has conducted a systematic policy of prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the Gaza war, subjecting Palestinian detainees to acts ranging from arbitrary violence to sexual abuse, Israeli rights group B’Tselem said in a report.

It said the report, issued on Monday, was based on interviews with 55 Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel detained in Israeli prisons since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel that set off the war, most of them without being tried.

“The testimonies clearly indicate a systematic, institutional policy focused on the continual abuse and torture of all Palestinian prisoners held by Israel,” the report said.

The Israeli military, which runs some detention facilities where Palestinian prisoners have been held, said that it operated according to the rule of law and any specific claims of abuse were investigated.

“The IDF categorically rejects allegations of systematic abuse, including sexual abuse, in its detention facilities,” it said, adding that monitoring mechanisms were in place to ensure facilities were run in accordance with the law.

A spokesperson for the Israel Prison Service said that all prisoners were treated according to the law and all basic rights were fully applied by professionally trained guards.

“We are not aware of the claims you described and as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility,” the spokesperson said, adding that detainees had the right to file complaints that would be fully examined and investigated.

The B’Tselem report was issued days after the Israeli military detained nine soldiers accused of severe abuse of a prisoner in a military facility in the Negev desert. Israeli press reports said the soldiers were accused of sexually abusing a member of an elite Hamas unit.

The report detailed allegations that Palestinian prisoners were subjected to arbitrary beatings, degrading and humiliating treatment and sleep deprivation, as well as “the repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity”.

“The overall picture indicates abuse and torture carried out under orders, in utter defiance of Israel’s obligations both under domestic law and international law,” it said.

‘UTTER HUMILIATION’

Fathiyeh Abu Mousa said the treatment she received was routinely humiliating and that she was held in handcuffs and chains even as she was being released from detention in July without charges being laid.

“The food is very bad and they give it to us in a humiliating manner,” she told Reuters. “They gave us two meals a day, no clothes or shampoo to bathe or shower. My face flared up with a rash from the mattress. It was utter humiliation there.”

Allegations of prisoner abuse have surfaced repeatedly during the Gaza war, adding to mounting international pressure on Israel over its conduct of the 10-month-old conflict.

The report from B’Tselem, a group that documents human rights violations by Israel in the occupied West Bank and other areas, said the treatment accorded to prisoners was a deliberate policy implemented under the direction of the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The prison service spokesperson said that since the Oct. 7 attack, Ben-Gvir had ordered that prison conditions be made more strict to reverse an improvement in conditions allowed previously.

Qadura Fares, head of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Detainees Affairs, reiterated a call for an international commission of inquiry into the treatment of prisoners to hold Israel accountable.

“We have documentation of the crimes committed by Israel against Palestinian detainees in its prisons and we have horrific testimonies of what detainees are subjected to, whether related to torture, rape and other crimes,” he said.

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Additional reporting by Yosri Aljamal; editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Mark Heinrich

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Эскалация между Россией и США была предотвращена благодаря звонку министра обороны РФ Андрея Белоусова главе Пентагона Ллойду Остину. Об этом завяил замглавы МИД РФ Сергей Рябков.

«Могу сказать, что по некоторым признакам сигнал, который был направлен с российской стороны до Вашингтона и, я так понимаю, не только до Вашингтона, но и до некоторых других столиц, подконтрольных Вашингтону, дошел. Мы избежали нового эскалационного витка», — сказал Сергей Рябков в эфире «России 1». Так он прокомментировал телефонный разговор между главами оборонных ведомств.

Ранее состоялся разговор министров обороны России и США, в котором российский министр уведомил американского коллегу об опасности эскалации на Украине. Эту информацию передает «Царьград». Позже Белоусов звонил Остину, чтобы обсудить с ним еще несколько вопросов, касающихся отношений между Россией и США. В частности, они обсудили вопрос снижения риска возможной эскалации, уточняет 360.ru.

После этого глава Пентагона связался с властями Украины, потребовав не устраивать провокаций в отношении РФ, если они таковые замышляют.

It was all over in two and a half minutes of gunfire and screaming.

And yet, even as Donald Trump was bundled into an armoured Chevrolet Suburban SUV and driven off to safety, it was obvious that the drama was only just beginning.

There are simply too many terrible mistakes, too many lingering questions and too many people keen to spread rumours on social media for the scandal to go away.

The recent revelation that Thomas Crooks, the man whose rifle bullet grazed the ex-president’s ear at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, three weeks ago, had earlier researched how Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F Kennedy in 1963 is strangely appropriate.

After all, history may end up remembering Crooks in the same way: as a man at the centre of a debate over whether he acted alone or was part of a dark conspiracy.

A Gallup poll last year revealed that a shocking 65 per cent of adult Americans believe Oswald didn’t act alone, as the government has always claimed.

Yet another Hollywood conspiracy film, made by the celebrated screenwriter and playwright David Mamet and this time blaming the Mafia, is in the works.

And as Trump lovers and haters spar over what happened in Pennsylvania, they do at least agree on one thing: the official narrative just won’t suffice.

Even Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s spin doctor, was at it this week.

The man who loves to decry the spread of misinformation online posted a photo of Trump from a recent press conference, alerting his 1.1million followers on X to an apparently unblemished right ear with the words, ‘That ear… miracle…’

A number of commenters accused Campbell of irresponsibly encouraging a Left-wing conspiracy theory that the Trump camp arranged a fake assassination attempt to boost his pre-election popularity.

Some Right-wingers, meanwhile, have an equally inflammatory counter-thesis: that the attempt on Trump’s life was the work of shadowy forces on the Left.

From claims that the Secret Service deliberately ignored a clear and present danger to the ex-president to suggestions there was a second shooter lurking in a water tower, this is a gift that keeps on giving to those who refuse to accept Trump’s protectors simply messed up.

REPUBLICANS ‘STAGED THE SHOOTING’

Alastair Campbell is not the only one to question why Trump’s ear appears completely unscathed less than a month after being hit by a high-velocity rifle round that sent blood streaming down his face.

A poll of Democrat supporters conducted by business intelligence company Morning Consult found that one third believes the shooting was staged by Trump supporters with no intention of harming him.

Under widely-shared hashtags such as #staged, #fakeassassination and #stagedbytrump, social media posts that pore over the issue have been viewed – in some cases – more than a million times.

Why, most important of all, was a 20-year-old nursing home assistant able to get so close to Trump with an assault-style rifle, lie down on an unguarded roof, take aim – and then so narrowly miss him after he turned his head at the last moment?

Trump’s opponents suspect this is all too neat to be true as it has given his campaign an obvious boost, allowing supporters to hail him as a hero who came within an inch of martydom.

Senior Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, have even claimed that God personally intervened to protect the former president.

What happened immediately after the shots rang out has also struck some as suspicious.

The Donald is famously adept at exploiting any opportunity to make political capital but even seasoned Trump watchers were shocked at how quickly he recovered from being shot in the ear and thrown to the ground by his bodyguards.

Just seconds later he was on his feet, shaking his clenched fist in defiance and shouting: ‘Fight, fight, fight’.

Equally suspicious for some is why on earth his bodyguards allowed him to expose himself to any potential accomplices of Crooks – unless, of course, they knew for a fact that there wasn’t another shooter nearby.

It also seemed fortuitous that an Associated Press photographer was on hand to snap what will surely be the defining image of Trump’s re-election campaign: a bloodied but unbowed contender, fist raised and surrounded by bodyguards, raising his right fist as a large American flag flutters in a clear blue sky behind him.

‘It was too damn perfect,’ said one sceptical US-based YouTuber, noting ‘the flag positioned perfect and everything’.

The post was later deleted with an apology but not before almost one million people had viewed it.

‘It looks very staged,’ wrote ‘Jane Eire’ on X on the day of the shooting – again earning more than one million views. ‘Sounded like a BB gun. Nobody in the crowd is running or panicking.’ Yet, undeniably, one man – father Corey Comperatore – lay dead with a bullet in the head.

‘DEMOCRATS PLANNED THE ASSASSINATION’

The first claim that the Left – in the shape of Antifa, short for ‘anti-fascists’ – was responsible for the assassination attempt was posted on social media site X just four minutes after the shooting.

Some conservatives recalled how, only days earlier, President Biden had complained that he was tired of talking about his poor performance in June’s televised debate and told his supporters that: ‘It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.’

It proved an unfortunate choice of words.

Within a few hours of the incident, Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert stated: ‘Joe Biden is responsible for the shooting today.’

Since then, however, some Republicans have gone a step further, suggesting that Democrats somehow organised it themselves, describing the culprits as simply ‘they’.

This is the accepted shorthand in Trump World for the ‘deep state’, his enemies within the establishment who are determined to crush him.

Even US congressmen are not above pushing this incendiary line, despite the absence of any supporting evidence.

They have been joined by Trump’s sons Eric and Don Junior, the former stating in one TV interview: ‘I said that the Democrats would stop at absolutely nothing.’

Eli Crane, a US Representative for Arizona and former Navy SEAL, has also repeatedly pushed this line – while insisting he is no conspiracy theorist.

Crane, who even travelled to the site of the shooting in Pennsylvania to conduct his own investigation, last week told a radio show: ‘Not only did they try and bankrupt him, but they tried to put him in prison. When that didn’t work, they tried to put him in prison for 750 years. And many of us said the next step in this escalation is for them to try and kill him because they can’t — they know they can’t beat him fair and square.’

And Representative Cory Mills of Florida, a former Army sniper, has echoed the argument of many on the Right who say that the sheer scale of the security failings point to conspiracy rather than cock up.

He told CNN: ‘I have a very difficult time not leaning myself toward this was intentional as opposed to fecklessness.’

Such speculation is unlikely to go away. Clay Higgins of Louisiana, one of the Republican congressmen who has suggested online that the Left was indeed trying to stop Trump that day, has been appointed to the bipartisan Washington task force now investigating the assassination attempt.

Beyond the relatively sober atmosphere of the US Congress, the accusations have, predictably, been somewhat more explicit.

Far-Right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones told his 2.6million X followers that the shooting was a ‘deep state’ murder plot, an ‘inside job’ and even a ‘failed coup’.

THE SECRET SERVICE ‘TURNED A BLIND EYE’

As the Secret Service has been portrayed in myriad Hollywood feature films as the infallible protector of American presidents, when it does foul up in real life, nobody can quite believe it was an accident.

And Trump’s fans – fed on a diet of deep state conspiracy theories – have little difficulty believing that the men and women in the dark suits and sunglasses (employed by a federal agency, after all) are ‘in’ on the plot.

Thomas Crooks was not only able to get on to an unsecured warehouse roof just 400 feet or so from the rally stage but set up his assault rifle and fire eight rounds unimpeded, at least three of which came close to seriously wounding or killing Trump.

‘That person was allowed to scale that roof,’ declared the outspoken conservative commentator Candace Owens on TikTok.

Owens says she spent considerable time around Trump when he was president and that nobody could get near him without the Secret Service ‘being aware of it’.

She claimed that agents once almost shot her husband for getting too close to Trump. So, for her, it was impossible to accept it was an accident that a man with a rifle was allowed to get within shooting range.

The Secret Service has even been forced to reject the claims that it denied requests to enlarge Trump’s ‘protective detail’. Or that it had assigned shorter and allegedly less-experienced female agents in a deliberate bid to endanger him.

Instead, giving evidence to the Senate, Secret Service bosses tried to blame the local police, who were responsible for securing the perimeter of the rally and the building used by the gunman.

The police officers in Pennsylvania angrily reject this criticism, blaming the Secret Service for a fatal breakdown in communication.

One police sniper said he had texted warnings to the Secret Service about Crooks a full 90 minutes before the shooting started after the gunman had been seen wandering outside the rally with a golf ‘range finder’, a form of hi-tech eye glass used to calculate distance.

But the Secret Service – whose own snipers hadn’t even turned up to a planned briefing with their police counterparts, and who might not have received the alerts – did nothing in response, he claims.

The Secret Service certainly seems to have been slow off the mark. The Washington Post reported this week that it was a member of a police SWAT team at ground level – and not a member of the Secret Service – who was actually the first to return fire after he saw muzzle flashes from Crooks’ collapsible AR15-style rifle.

The police shot caused the gunman to retreat from his roof-top perch and stop firing for crucial seconds – which then allowed a Secret Service counter-sniper to spot and kill him.

Online speculation was given a new lease of life on Thursday when a newly uncovered video clip filmed by one of the Trump supporters injured in the shooting showed a figure moving across the roof top used by the gunman three minutes before the firing started.

Posted online by popular conservative commentator Benny Johnson among others, the clip has been watched at least 3.8million times.

Johnson said it contradicted the Secret Service’s claim that snipers couldn’t see Crooks beyond the roof line.

TRUMP ‘WASN’T ACTUALLY SHOT’ AT ALL

In a congressional hearing following the attack, the FBI’s Director, Christopher Wray, said that there was ‘some question’ about whether Trump was struck by ‘a bullet or shrapnel’.

Even if he was only hit by shrapnel, the gunman must surely have been aiming at the former president as there were few other obvious targets among Trump’s supporters and bodyguards.

However, Wray’s remark gave fresh impetus to a theory that started circulating as soon as armchair detectives were able to pore over slowed-down footage of the moment the bullets were fired.

This is the claim that Trump appeared to be holding a yellow object in the hand that he immediately clutched to his injured ear.

Did he burst a bag of theatrical blood on the ear, as some now claim?

Another theory – supported by pictures that later turned out to be fake – is that Trump was hit by a shard of glass thrown up from his shattered teleprompter.

The former president remains adamant that he took a bullet to the ear and last week the FBI belatedly confirmed that he was hit either by a bullet or ricochet.

Critics have said that Trump has inflamed the conspiracy theories with self-imposed secrecy.

He refuses to release medical information about his injury and nor will the doctors who treated him, citing patient confidentiality.

‘THERE WAS A SECOND SHOOTER’

Just as JFK’s 1963 assassination continues to be overshadowed by claims about a second gunman, so Trump’s shooting has inspired feverish talk of a mystery ‘second shooter’ – a possibility for which the FBI and Secret Service say there’s no evidence.

The most popular theory – supported by somewhat vague eyewitness accounts and very grainy video footage circulating online – is that another gunman was positioned on a nearby water tower. The video shows a fuzzy dark spot, possibly a shadow, at the top of the tower.

Posts showing the video have now been watched millions of times on X but sceptics point out that escaping from the prominently positioned tower would have been very difficult without being spotted.

Undeterred by such common-sense reservations, some claim the second gunman was there to silence Crooks, a ‘patsy’ in the plot, after the shooting had taken place.

Others say this figure was an expert marksman hired to graze Trump’s ear in a ‘false flag’ operation to fake an assassination attempt.

He would certainly have had to be an incredibly good shot to guarantee grazing Trump’s ear rather than blowing his brains out

‘Almost makes you think they let it happen and then got rid of the guy because dead men tell no tales,’ said John Mark Dougan, a former Florida sheriff’s deputy who backs the second shooter line. Dougan is also a pro-Kremlin influencer online.

The failure of investigators to come up with a convincing motive for the gunman has strengthened the hand of those who insist he was simply a dupe manipulated by others determined to kill Trump.

But who exactly?

As with Lee Harvey Oswald, opinions vary wildly. The CIA, Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, Ukraine, even transgender people angry at Trump’s intolerance have all been raised as possibilities. But, as of yet, with no supporting evidence.

Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson claims that video of the shooting ‘calls into question what the FBI is telling us about a single shooter.’ He, too, struggles to provide corroborating evidence – beyond mentioning a ‘pretty interesting video on the internet by experts’ he claims to have seen.

Red’s a primary colour, and is seen everywhere, so why don’t you see more red paintball fill? 

The obvious answer is that it resembles (to varying degrees) that other red liquid, blood. In the end, commercial paintball largely frowns upon this comparison, and subsequently red paintball fill is somewhat of a black sheep in the paintball industry.

In fitting with a milsim play style, paintball fill that looks like blood does evoke a certain sense of authenticity to any elimination. A goggle lens soaked in gooey red liquid conjures a visceral reaction from the wearer, while adding to the realism of the game. 

The three large drawbacks to red fill lie in:

1. The inability to distinguish between real blood and paintball fill.
2. The public image drawn from paintballers using fill that looks like blood.
3. It stains like crazy.

A mixture of blood and paint.

The obvious reason for the indistinguishability between blood and paint being a problem is that you can’t tell when you’re bleeding or seriously injured. In looking at the picture above, you might not realize that the hit is actually bleeding.

In addition, some players may overreact to being hit if the paint looks like blood. A story related to me on a forum went as follows: A player was hit on his goggle lens during a local BYOP game with a red paintball, and was unable to see out of his left eye. Thinking that he was hit through the lens and there was blood everywhere, he screamed and whipped off his mask, and was left vulnerable to potentially dangerous paintball hits. As a result of this incident, red paintballs were subsequently banned from this establishment.

Eh? What was that?

By using paintballs that look like blood, anti-paintball media is given easy cannon fodder. It only feeds uninformed and uninterested pundits that feel that paintball is some kind of juvenile hyper-realistic ultraviolence.

This isn’t written with the intent of banning red fill or scaring people against using it. But if you do use it, for your sake and the sake of paintball as a whole, be smart about it.

A special thanks goes out to Jake, thanks for all your help!

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Moscow on Sunday accused the United States of bankrolling Ukrainian attempts on the life of Russian President Vladmir Putin, hours after former US president Donald Trump was injured in an assassination attempt.

The charges from Moscow came after Ukrainian spy chief Kyrylo Budanov revealed his country’s failed assassination attempts on Saturday in an interview.

“There have been assassination attempts [on Putin], but, as you can see, they haven’t been successful so far,” the Ukrainian military intelligence chief told the New Voice news outlet.

The Kremlin was quick to downplay the comments when the interview was published, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov quoted in Russian media as saying that the attempts were “obvious.”

“All the threats coming from the Kyiv regime are obvious. Therefore, the security of the president is established at the proper level,” Russian state-owned media outlet RT quoted him as saying.

But the following day, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Washington of funding the Ukrainian assassination attempts.

“Yesterday, one of the leaders of the Kyiv regime, Budanov, openly admitted that Ukrainian intelligence was preparing assassination attempts on the President of Russia. So this assassination attempt was prepared, again, with American money,” she wrote on Telegram on Sunday.

She charged that by providing “massive funding and uncontrolled supply of weapons,” the US had “created a terrorist structure in Ukraine — the Kyiv regime. This is a machine of murders, explosions, destruction, terrorist attacks against both political figures and the civilian population.”

In a post published hours after a gunman fired shots at Trump at an election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the Russian spokeswoman quipped, “Maybe it would be better to use this money to finance the American police and other services that should ensure law and order within the United States?”

One attendee was killed and two spectators were critically injured at the Trump rally. The Secret Service said after the dramatic incident on Saturday that it had killed the suspected shooter — who it said attacked from an elevated position outside the rally venue.

Asked whether the Trump attack could affect the legitimacy of the United States’ upcoming election, Peskov said: “It is not for us to judge. We have not the slightest desire to interfere. This is a US matter.”

Putin has said the outcome of the US presidential election is unlikely to change anything for Russia, and that Trump’s presidency had damaged US-Russia relations.

But the Russian leader has taken a public interest in Trump’s statements that he could end the Ukraine war, saying he does not know the details but supports the idea of ending the war in principle.

The Kremlin did, however, charge that the Biden administration had created an atmosphere that provoked the attack on Trump.

“We do not believe that the attempt to eliminate and assassinate Trump was organized by the current authorities,” the Kremlin spokesman told reporters on Sunday. “But the atmosphere around candidate Trump… provoked what America is confronting today.”

US President Joe Biden has condemned the attack, saying there was no place for such violence in America. Peskov said Russia condemned any violence in the course of the political struggle.

He added that there were no plans for Putin to call Trump in light of the incident.

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Twenty-eight people were shot with paintball guns in Los Angeles so far this year, and officials are warning of the improper use of the typically recreational weapon.

During a news conference Thursday, two Los Angeles police lieutenants detailed some of the alleged assaults that have occurred this year.

The victims range from 12 to 80 years old. In four incidents, people were robbed. Only five arrests have been made in connection with those assaults, officials said. Some of the culprits were apparently minors, but the paintball guns can be purchased at sporting goods stores by adults.

Last year, 5-year-old boy was struck in face and almost lost eye.

In July 2017, officials held a similar news conference after 49 people were with paintball guns that month.

The LAPD officials said there has also been a slight increase in the use of pellet guns and BB guns.

Lt. Jeff Bratcher said that assaults with paintball guns are serious offenses, and could lead to prison time.

“Innocent residents were assaulted walking to school, riding their bikes or just walking to the store,” Bratcher said during the news conference. “The sad part is many suspects video tape it, or post on social media and you can hear the suspects laughing as the victims cry out in pain.”

He added that, though some victims only end up with their clothing soaked in paint, others can suffer emotional trauma, welts or lacerations. Some of those welts are so deep, the victims are often left with a lifelong injury that doesn’t completely heal.

Lt. Perry Griffith explained that a typical paintball gun can hold up to 20 paintballs, and more can be held in a belt. The guns are usually semi-automatic, but can be adjusted to be fully automatic, he explained. The balls can be frozen and can lead to significant injuries. In addition, the guns can often look like real firearm. 

The lieutenants emphasized that paint-balling is an “exhilarating” experience, it is important to only exercise the sport in a controlled environment, where the guns are properly inspected and handled.

They asked people who know of loved ones or neighbors who own paintball guns, to remind them of their proper use.

Look quickly. Resembles an actual firearm right? But #LAPD reports an increase in paintball guns being used to commit crimes. Details at 11a. @ktla ⁦@LAPDHQ⁩ pic.twitter.com/bUx8R7e6fn

— Kareen Wynter (@kareennews) June 13, 2019

A survivor of the Hamas massacre at the Supernova music festival on October 7 said he was raped by terrorists attacking the rave, the first time a male victim has come forward to publicly detail sexual offenses during the brutal assault.

The testimony by the victim, whose comments to Channel 12 news were aired without revealing his identity, add to a growing body of evidence that terrorists who stormed into Israel on October 7 sexually assaulted their victims, both male and female.

Firsthand testimony of such acts has been fairly rare, as most of the victims were killed, a fact that some Israel critics have used to sow doubts about the allegations.

The victim was with hundreds others fleeing terrorists who descended upon the festival near Kibbutz Re’im early on October 7, when he said he was caught by forces from Hamas’s elite Nukhba unit.

“They pin you to the ground, you try to resist, they take off your clothes, laugh at you, humiliate you, spit at you,” he said, his face blurred and his voice distorted to avoid recognition. “They touched [private] parts, they rape you.”

“There is a circle, [people] laugh, and you don’t know what to do in the moment, whether you should resist or let it pass, how to deal with the situation. There was a very difficult rape. At some point more people arrived and called for them and so they had to stop,” added the man, who was identified by the Hebrew initial Dalet.

“It’s a very tough moment. Weakness in the entire body. As if your blood is cheap. They were wildly intoxicated, celebrating, laughing with their pistols, with their knives. You disassociate yourself from the situation, but on the other hand experience it very strongly. Very difficult,” he said.

Dalet eventually managed to escape, the report said, with the help of Israeli forces that showed up.

Asked how he has been coping with the experience, Dalet replied, “It wasn’t simple in the beginning. I was very closed off.” He also reported an obsessive fixation on cleanliness in the aftermath of the attack. “A lot, a lot of showers, to get all that energy off me, everything that happened.”

Dalet’s testimony has been handed to a police unit investigating sexual crimes committed by the terrorists on October 7, after he filed a complaint, the report said.

Aware that some are casting doubt on testimony of sexual violence on October 7, Dalet has presented various sources with medical opinions that testify to the harm done to him, as well as sitting for a polygraph test.

His testimony is also included in a major lawsuit filed by more than 100 survivors of the Supernova festival against the State of Israel, demanding more than NIS 500 million ($137 million) in government support.

“Many of them aren’t able to return to work, and aren’t able to return to their lives— to address [the case of] Dalet specifically, of course it’s impossible, at this stage, to return to normal life after what happened,” said Einat Ginzburg, one of the lawyers representing the massacre survivors.

Israeli police have been collecting survivor testimony, physical evidence, and confessions of sexual assault by terrorists on October 7 since the immediate aftermath of the attack, when thousands of terrorists burst into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, starting the ongoing war.

A February report by the United Nations Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict found that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across the Gaza periphery, including rape and gang rape, in at least three locations.”

The report also testified to “clear and convincing” evidence that hostages were raped while being held in Gaza, and that those currently held captive are still facing such abuse.

Further evidence was made public in April by the release of a one-hour documentary on the topic directed by former Meta CEO Sheryl Sandberg, called “Screams Before Silence,” which is free to watch online.

Amit Soussana, an Israeli hostage who was released during a weeklong truce in November, was the first to speak publicly about being sexually abused in captivity, recounting being marched at gunpoint to the bedroom of her captor, where he forced her to “commit a sexual act on him.”

Teenager Agam Goldstein-Almog, also released in the November deal, reported having been groped by captors and being constantly afraid she would be raped. “Half of the girls and young women I met in captivity told me they experienced sexual or physical abuse or both. They are still living there with their rapists,” she said at the time.

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left for Washington on Monday, leaving behind a brutal war to make a politically precarious speech before the U.S. Congress at a time of great uncertainty following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race.

With efforts ongoing to bring about a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, rising concerns about the war spreading to Lebanon and Yemen, and the U.S. in the midst of a dizzying election campaign, Netanyahu’s speech has the potential to cause disarray on both sides of the ocean.

The risks only increased with Biden’s decision Sunday to drop out of the race for president, especially since the choice of a replacement Democratic nominee — and the potential next American leader — are still up in the air.

Before stepping on the plane, Netanyahu said he would emphasize the theme of Israel’s bipartisanship in his speech and said Israel would remain America’s key ally in the Middle East “regardless who the American people choose as their next president.”

“In this time of war and uncertainty, it’s important that Israel’s enemies know that America and Israel stand together,” he said, adding that he will meet Biden during his trip and thank him for his support for Israel.

A person familiar with Biden’s schedule confirmed Sunday that the president will host Netanyahu at the White House. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the exact timing of the meeting has not been established because Biden is recovering from COVID-19.

Netanyahu is scheduled to address Congress on Wednesday. He is also expected to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Netanyahu will deliver his congressional address with an eye on several audiences: his ultranationalist governing partners, the key to his political survival; the Biden administration, which Netanyahu counts on for diplomatic and military support; and Donald Trump’s Republican Party, which could offer Netanyahu a reset in relations if he is reelected in November.

His words risk angering any one of those constituencies, which the Israeli leader cannot afford if he hopes to hold on to his tenuous grip on power.

“There are a few land mines and pitfalls on this trip,” Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, said before Biden’s withdrawal. “He is thought of as a political wizard who knows how to escape from traps. I am not sure he still knows how to do that.”

It is Netanyahu’s fourth speech to Congress — more than any other world leader. During his address, his far-right governing partners will want to hear his resolve to continue the war and topple Hamas.

The Biden administration will look for progress toward the latest U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal and details on a postwar vision. Republicans hope Netanyahu besmirches Biden and bolsters the GOP’s hoped-for perception as Israel’s stalwart supporter.

The war, which was sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has tested Israel’s ties with its top ally as never before.

The Biden administration has stood staunchly beside Israel. But it has grown increasingly alarmed about the conduct of the Israeli military, the continued difficulties of getting humanitarian aid into Gaza, especially after the short-lived U.S. military pier off Gaza coast, as well as Israel’s lack of postwar plans and the harm to civilians in Gaza. Similar concerns will likely persist if Americans elect a new Democratic president.

Biden earlier this year froze the delivery of certain bombs over fears they would be used in Israel’s incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which at the time sheltered more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.

The U.S. abstained from a United Nations Security Council vote in March that called for a cease-fire and the release of hostages but did not link the two. Netanyahu called the decision a “retreat” from a “principled position” by Israel’s ally.

Biden has had to walk a fine line of his own. He has faced harsh criticism from progressive Democrats and many Arab Americans. Even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking elected U.S. Jewish official, lambasted Netanyahu in March for his handling of the war.

Some Democrats will likely demonstrate their anger toward Biden and Netanyahu by skipping Wednesday’s speech. Netanyahu is also likely to be hounded by pro-Palestinian activists during his trip.

The last time Netanyahu spoke to Congress in 2015 was at the invitation of the Republican Party. The trip drove Israeli-American politics deep into the partisan divide as Netanyahu railed against then-President Barack Obama’s Iran nuclear deal.

Netanyahu has not shied away from making Israel a partisan issue. With his nationalist conservative ideology, he has been perceived as throwing his support behind Republican candidates in the past, rankling Democrats and Israelis who want to keep the U.S.-Israel relationship bipartisan.

It’s unclear if he will meet Trump. If there is a meeting, it could expose Netanyahu to accusations that he is once again taking sides. But if he doesn’t meet with Trump, the former president could feel slighted.

The speech also offers Netanyahu opportunity. He will be able to show Israelis that despite the tensions with the Biden administration, U.S. support for him remains ironclad.

“He wants the Israeli public to believe that he is very much still very welcome in the United States. And this shows that the American people are with him,” said David Makovsky, director of the program on Arab-Israel Relations at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

For critics of Netanyahu, that embrace is unacceptable and grants legitimacy to a deeply polarizing leader whose public support has plummeted. Netanyahu faces widespread protests and calls to resign over the failures of Oct. 7 and his handling of the war.

In a letter to Congress, 500 Israeli writers, scholars and public figures expressed their dismay over the invitation to Netanyahu, saying he will use the platform to advance misguided policies that align with his far-right governing partners.

“His only interest is preserving his own power,” they wrote. “Does the United States Congress wish to support such a model of cynical and manipulative leadership in these times?”

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu will be joined by rescued hostage Noa Argamani and her father. But for many of the families of hostages held in Gaza, the trip is an affront.

“This is not the time for trips,” Ayelet Levy Shachar, whose daughter Naama was kidnapped on Oct. 7, told reporters.

“Netanyahu: First a deal, then you can travel.”