City Council member Solveig Spjeldnes posted a Letter to the Editor on March 12 explaining why she voted against the Israeli Ceasefire Resolution, which had been cocreated by the Athens City Council and local residents.
I appreciate her explanation, and the fact that she also opposes the massacre in Palestine. I honor her right and duty to follow her conscience regarding her vote, and wish to address some contested details in her article.
After the intense fighting on October 7, early reports claimed that Hamas had killed 1,400 civilians. Later Israel dropped the number to 1,200. More recent accounting has put the number at 1,136.
The number of civilians killed by Hamas is further eroded by the fact that Israeli helicopters and tanks were responsible for an unknown number of the civilian deaths. Although it is strongly denied, footage from helicopters shows missiles hitting cars and other targets.
The worst of the burned bodies, blamed on Hamas and used as evidence of Hamas’ savagery, were almost certainly caused by U.S. supplied Hellfire missiles hitting both Hamas fighters and Israeli hostages. The type of damage could not have been accomplished with Hamas’ machine guns.
Yasmin Porat, the sole survivor at a house in Be’eri Kibbutz, describes a firefight between the IDF and Hamas. Israeli civilians were caught in an intense crossfire. During that exchange, many civilians died.
One building was shelled by an Israeli tank, and several civilians were killed along with Hamas fighters.
Adding to the numbers of “civilian deaths” there may have been armed settlers who were fighting along with the IDF.
The claims that Hamas was using sexual violence against women, as a military strategy, is completely evidence free. There have been no women to come forward to say they were sexually abused, no actual eyewitness accounts and no forensic evidence.
According to the Feminist Solidarity Network for Palestine, “The UN report on sexual violence on October 7 has found no evidence of systematic rape by Hamas or any other Palestinian group, despite widespread media reporting to the contrary. But there are deeper problems with the report’s credibility.” Pramila Patten, the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, was the original source of the claim of systematic sexual violence.
Pramila Patten, previously had falsely claimed that Russian soldiers were given Viagra, to systematically rape women. This story was debunked by Patten herself, who admitted that she had witnessed nothing and had no actual evidence. In later testimony about the claim about Hamas’ alleged sexual strategy, she said that providing evidence was not her job.
On the other hand, there is a tremendous amount of evidence of Israeli forces committing sexual violence on Palestinians. Israeli sexual abuse has been committed not only on women and children, but men, and has been going on for decades.
Even though various atrocity stories continue to circulate in the echo chamber of the corporate mass media, the weight of actual evidence does not support them. Verified stories of Israeli abuse of Palestinians do not appear. This is not to say that no atrocities were committed by Hamas, but the most spectacular and repeated incidents were fabrications.
Drake Chamberlin
Amesville, Ohio
