‘They want to break our will’: Gaza flotilla activist tells of rape in Israeli detention... Anna Liedtke files criminal complaint in Israel over alleged attack by female guards and says abuse was intended to silence campaigners

Anna Liedtke pictured in Cologne, Germany. ‘There is no reason for me to be ashamed.’ Photograph: Judith Jockel/The Guardian

Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem

Wed 15 Jul 2026 09.00 EDT

The third time Anna Liedtke was subjected to an illegal strip-search in Israeli detention, female prison guards forced her on to her knees, covered her mouth to stop her screaming and raped her, according to interviews and a criminal complaint filed in Israel.

She described hearing male guards laughing during the attack, which she believes they watched and may have filmed. It took place in an area separated from the prison hallway by a partially drawn curtain that her attackers had left open.

Liedtke, 25, joined a flotilla sailing from Europe to Gaza with humanitarian aid last autumn. Israeli forces intercepted her boat in international waters on 8 October and took her to Israel, where she was detained for five days.

The abuse and violence directed at flotilla participants in Israeli prisons, including rape, was intended to intimidate, Liedtke said. “It’s clear they want to break our will and silence us, making this so traumatic that we will never talk about Palestine again,” she told the Guardian.

Instead, she told friends and doctors within days. In December she became the first flotilla activist to talk publicly about rape in Israeli detention. More than a dozen others have reported sexual assault, most anonymously.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/15/gaza-flotilla-activist-rape-complaint-israel-anna-liedtke

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Small boats in the flotilla leaving a port in southern Italy, setting sail for Gaza. Photograph: Orietta Scardino/EPA

"“They were shouting at me, threatening to rape me, chanting ‘death to Arabs’. I thought the police would protect me from the mob, but they did nothing to intervene,” she said."

 Mob of Orthodox Jewish men chases woman after protest at Brooklyn synagogue

Woman, who requested anonymity, says ‘a group of 100 men’ followed her, shouting threats and kicking her

A Brooklyn woman said she feared for her life as she was chased, kicked, spit at and pelted with objects by a mob of Orthodox Jewish men who mistook her as a participant in a protest against Israel’s far-right security minister.

The assault, recorded by a bystander, unfolded on Thursday near the global headquarters of the Chabad Lubavitch movement in Crown Heights, where an appearance by Itamar Ben-Gvir set off clashes between pro-Palestinian activists and members of the neighborhood’s large Orthodox Jewish community.

The woman, a neighborhood resident in her 30s, told the Associated Press she learned of the protest after hearing police helicopters over her apartment. She walked over to investigate around 10.30pm but by then the protest had mostly dispersed. Not wanting to be filmed, she covered her face with a scarf.

“As soon as I pulled up my scarf, a group of 100 men came over immediately and encircled me,” said the woman, who spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety.

“They were shouting at me, threatening to rape me, chanting ‘death to Arabs’. I thought the police would protect me from the mob, but they did nothing to intervene,” she said.

As the chants grew in intensity, a lone police officer tried to escort her to safety. They were followed for blocks by hundreds of men and boys jeering in Hebrew and English.

Video shows two of the men kicking her in the back, another hurling a traffic cone at her head and a fourth pushing a trash can into her. “This is America,” one of the men can be heard saying. “We got Israel. We got an army now.”... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/28/mob-orthodox-jewish-men-chases-woman

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What Israeli soldiers' display of Palestinian women's lingerie reveals about the Zionist psyche

Shereen Hindawi-Wyatt

"... Amnesty International's 2022 report on the Israeli system of apartheid found that Israeli authorities have abused and sexually harassed Palestinians in detention for decades. More recently, the UN disclosed reports of Palestinian women and girls being "subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault", including rape, at the hands of Israeli prison guards.

Earlier this week, Unrwa announced an upcoming report detailing Israeli forces' torture and abuse of more than 1,000 Palestinians of all genders in Gaza. After watching several videos of soldiers gleefully digging through Palestinian women's underwear, one cannot help but agonise over the violations taking place behind the scenes. This agony looms over the disturbing photo posted by 25-year-old Israeli solider Benjamin, a French citizen, to his dating profile. Legs spread wide, gun in hand, he smirks at a range of Palestinian women's lingerie hanging on a wall.

This exhibition of genocidal spoils curated by the occupiers raises a host of haunting questions: where are the people who once wore those garments now? Did Israeli soldiers force them from their homes at gunpoint or even kill them before posing for their photoshoots? Did any of them tear the lingerie from women's bodies, and if so, what horrors could these Palestinians have been subjected to?

To what end does the Zionist soldier in pursuit of a romantic partner openly mock Palestinians' capacity for profoundly loving, sexual relationships? Why does the Zionist soldier offer his own partner necklaces and shoes looted from dead and displaced Palestinians, and what do such gestures reveal about settler-colonialism's mutilation of romance?"

READ MORE  https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/what-israeli-soldiers-display-palestinian-women-lingerie-zionist-psyche

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