This was published earlier this month:
The BBC has seen and heard evidence of rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the 7 October Hamas attacks.
WARNING: CONTAINS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE
I will confess to you, I did not read on. The article is here. A general awareness is important, I think. People ought to be aware of what Hamas has done. We must not be naïve. We must not have our head in the sand.
As I see it, one does not have to absorb every detail. But one should have no illusion about the nature of this enemy: Hamas.
Over the years, I have written about violence in Sudan, Burma, the DRC, Ukraine — many places. The rape is constant. It is, you could maintain, more horrifying and unbearable than the murder.
• Grateful for Charlotte Gainsbourg. Merci, madame.
• You may have noticed this:
There was, in fact, a ceasefire on October 6. The next day, Hamas went about killing as many people as possible. They killed more Jews in a single day than had been killed on any other day since the Holocaust. Hamas chose war. The time for ceasefires is over.
You can’t attack a people, breaking a ceasefire, and then say, “Hey, now: ceasefire.” Too late. Hamas must be destroyed.
• John Kirby has it right:
I discussed this issue with Natan Sharansky, in a podcast. The IDF and civilian casualties. In an article, I paraphrased him as follows:
. . . even in this situation, we have the most moral army in the world. Even after the brutality, the horrors — the murder, the rape, the torture, the kidnapping — of October 7.
We understand that we have to kill Hamas before Hamas kills us all. They are stockpiling weapons in schools and in mosques. And Israel?
We warn people of our attacks. We want them to leave the areas that we are targeting. This robs us of the element of surprise — and surprise is very important in warfare. We are ready to risk the lives of our soldiers in order to kill fewer civilians.
The IDF is very, very different from Hamas. Night and day. Day and night.
• Another news item:
In a rare punitive move against Israel, the State Department said Tuesday it will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
For that report, go here.
This move strikes me as right. I know Israeli conservatives — hard-liners; national-security hawks — who are sick to death of these extremists, for they make life more difficult for everyone.
• What in the world will happen — can happen — in Gaza after the war? The Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005 (following a dramatic debate, with erstwhile allies and friends, such as Sharansky and Ariel Sharon, disagreeing with each other). Could Israel possibly reoccupy Gaza? That would be disastrous, right? But who would govern there?
This question needs careful thinking through — and David Frum has proven equal to the task: