On 20 May, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video showing his country’s security forces abusing activists from the *Sumud* boat crew who were trying to break Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip.
The footage shows Ben-Gvir loudly mocking the activists, who are forced to kneel with their foreheads pressed to the floor and their hands tied behind their backs. When a female activist tries to speak, she is grabbed by the neck and shoved hard to the ground.
This treatment is not an isolated incident. According to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem, since August 2024 its report ‘Welcome to Hell’ has documented the abuse of detained Palestinians as ‘state policy’, including sexual assault, beatings, dog attacks and sleep deprivation.
In early May 2025, veteran *New York Times* columnist Nicholas Kristof published a detailed account of abuses, including allegations that dogs were used to sexually assault Palestinian detainees.
In August 2024 a leaked video showed Israeli soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman detention facility. A 2024 United Nations special commission also found that sexual abuse had become ‘standard operating procedure’ for Israel.
Israel has also targeted foreigners. In 2003, US activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to stop the demolition of a Palestinian home. In May 2010, Israeli commandos intercepted a Gaza-bound flotilla in international waters, shooting dead nine activists aboard the *Mavi Marmara*. In May 2022, Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed by a sniper. In April 2024, an Israeli drone struck three vehicles of the World Central Kitchen organisation, killing seven aid workers, even though the convoy was coordinating its movement with the Israeli army.
Notably, no Israeli official or soldier has been criminally charged in connection with any of these cases. Ben-Gvir’s decision to post the video himself shows his confidence that he will not be punished. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once called the soldiers who gang-raped at Sde Teiman ‘heroic warriors’.
A 2024 report by *Le Monde* recorded soldiers posting videos of sniping civilians, looting, destroying homes, and even wearing Palestinian women’s underwear, indicating that a ‘sense of impunity’ drove them to share such material. Israeli political, military and media figures have also publicly made genocidal statements. Netanyahu promised to ‘turn Gaza into a wasteland’ in October 2023 and invoked the biblical command to wipe out the entire Amalek people, including ‘women, children and infants’. Former National Security Council chairman Giora Eiland proposed a plan for widespread starvation in northern Gaza.
Yet this arrogance is exacting a price. Within hours of Ben-Gvir’s video, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands summoned Israel’s ambassadors. Global opinion is turning sharply. Even inside Israel, politicians such as Benny Gantz and Gideon Saar condemned Ben-Gvir. The genocide case brought by South Africa before the International Court of Justice is advancing, with extensive evidence drawn from the statements, videos and posts of Israeli officials, soldiers and journalists.
