🌏 Israel Arrests, Strips And Abducts Palestinian Civilian Men, Malala Calls For World To Stand With Afghan Girls And More

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Israeli forces have mass arrested, stripped and severely beat dozens of Palestinian civilian men in northern Gaza, before abducting them to an unknown location.

Video footage surfaced on social media on Thursday Dec. 7 showing rows of Palestinian men stripped down to their underwear, with their hands tied behind their backs, sitting on the ground, while being guarded by Israeli troops.

The video has been verified by rights groups and several media outlets including the BBC and confirmed by the Israeli army.

The men – which witnesses said included children as young as 13, journalists and UN workers – were taken from two UN-run schools that were serving as shelters in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, according to rights group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

Diaa al-Kahlout, a journalist working for the Al-Araby Al-Jadeed news outlet, known in English as the New Arab, was identified as one of the men who was taken.

Al-Araby Al-Jadeed said that he had been taken an unknown location, according to Al Jazeera.

Euro-Med Monitor also said it had documented incidents where the Israeli army and snipers directly killed displaced people near the two schools.

It said that the army targeted everyone who tried to leave, even if they were holding white flags.

A young man Mohammed Al-Rai told Euro-Med Monitor that he saw at least seven other young men shot and killed by the Israeli forces because they refused to undress and comply with the army’s humiliating orders.

Another video showed the men being transported away in military trucks, while another photo showed them kneeling with their hands tied in an open sandy area.

Some Israeli media said that the men are “possible” Hamas fighters but did not give further details, according to Middle East Eye.

When asked by the BBC about the videos, the Israeli government said that all the men were “of military age and had been discovered in areas that civilians were supposed to have evacuated weeks ago”.

More On The Israel–Hamas War

• The US has again blocked a UN resolution for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying it will only benefit Hamas.
• Palestinian journalists in Gaza gathered to sing “We Will Stay Here” despite intense Israeli bombing.
• Some Israelis are mocking Palestinians suffering in Gaza in a new TikTok trend, causing outrage.
• Israel actually knew about Hamas’ October 7 attack a year before, an investigation has revealed.
• 17 Thai hostages taken in Israel have finally returned to Thailand and reunited with their families.

Also Happening Around The World

🇦🇪 Leaked documents have revealed the UAE planned to use COP28 to make oil deals.

🇷🇺 Russia has banned the entire global LGBTQ movement as an “extremist” organization.

🇩🇰 Denmark has made it illegal to burn the Quran in public.

🇳🇿 New Zealand’s new right-wing government has reversed its smoking ban to pay for tax cuts.

🇳🇿 Also in New Zealand, this Māori politician performed the haka in the parliament before swearing allegiance to King Charles.

Pakistani activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has delivered a powerful speech calling on the world not to forget about the plight of Afghan girls and women living under the Taliban’s rule.

Speaking at the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Tuesday Dec. 5, 26-year-old Yousafzai called the Taliban’s crackdown on women’s rights since it took power in 2021 “gender apartheid”.

In her speech, she noted that the Taliban’s oppression of women’s rights only made headlines for a short time but the world has since turned its back against the Afghan people.

Yousafzai said that this may be a reflection of the sheer number of crises the world is facing, from Sudan to Yemen, the climate crisis, the war in Ukraine to Gaza.

“So much of humanity is wounded, but we cannot allow ourselves to buy into this false notion that we can only care about one crisis at a time,” she said. “We must be able to hold space for suffering wherever it is happening in the world.”

Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by a local branch of the Taliban for campaigning for girls to be allowed to go to school at age 15, said that the Taliban has in effect, “made girlhood illegal”.

"If you are a girl in Afghanistan, the Taliban has decided your future for you," she said. "You cannot attend a secondary school or university. You cannot find an open library where you can read. You see your mothers and your older sisters confined and constrained in a similar way. They cannot leave the house on their own, not to work, not to go to the park, not to get a haircut, not to even see a doctor."

She called on the global community to make “gender apartheid” a crime under international law and not to normalize relations with the Taliban.

"It took a bullet to my head for the world to stand with me. What will it take for the world to stand with the girls and women of Afghanistan?" she said. "To anyone who says they care about protecting girls and women, to anyone who says they care about education, to anyone who says they care about oppression? What are you waiting for?"

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