In response to communication from CAMERA, The Wrap has improved an article which initially failed to note that Israel has emphatically denied the United Nations allegations charging the Jewish state of sexual abuses.
Stephanie Kaloi’s June 7 article, “Tribeca Film Festival Condemns Elon Gold’s ‘Offensive and Unacceptable’ Palestine Rape Comments,” included three full paragraphs detailing the disputed allegations, but no mention of Israel’s unequivocal denial. It reported:
In May the United Nations called on Israel “to review and revise its detention laws, policies and practices” in response to allegations of abuse and torture by Israeli guards against Palestinians in custody. A recent United Nations report “counted 52 incidents of different forms of torture or other ill-treatment, and another 33 incidents of sexual torture and other sexualised ill-treatment.”
Those incidents reportedly include “severe beatings, stress positions, excessive restraints, electrocution, sleep deprivation, malnutrition and starvation, prolonged incommunicado detention, and inhumane and degrading conditions marked by overcrowding, unhygienic conditions and spread of diseases, denial of medical care, and lack of sunlight and ventilation.”
They also include allegations of sexual torture. “Eleven male detainees reported beatings, grabbing, electrocuting and mauling by dogs, of their genitals. Humiliating and degrading strip searches, including sexual gazing at and intimidating female and male detainees, were recorded.”
Israel’s emphatic rejection of these accusations was widely reported in other media outlets. For instance, regarding the U.N.’s decision to blacklist Israel over these accusations, the Associated Press reported:
“We are done with this UN Secretary-General,” Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N., said in a statement on social media. “Guterres has put Israel on the same blacklist along with Hamas, ISIS and the most depraved terrorist organizations in the world.” Guterres’ second five-year term ends Dec. 31.
Danon said Israel had provided documents, data and detailed responses to the allegations that are raised in the report. . . .
Israel’s foreign ministry said Thursday it has “comprehensively, thoroughly, and unequivocally refuted these allegations.”
“This decision is yet another example of the UN’s long-standing, institutionalized hostility toward Israel,” the foreign ministry wrote on X.
The Wrap editors agreed with CAMERA that the report was remiss in not noting Israel’s denial and commendably added the following information to the story:
Yet, Israel has issued an emphatic denial of the accusations. Most recently, Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N, noted in a May social media post that they rejected being put on “the same blacklist” as some of the “most depraved terrorist organizations in the world.”
Additionally, Danon defended that Israel provided detailed documents and data refuting the allegations. Danon’s statement echoed similar comments made by Israel’s foreign ministry on X, in which they shared that the country had “comprehensively, thoroughly and unequivocally refuted these allegations.”
The foreign ministry added at the time: “This decision is yet another example of the UN’s long-standing, institutionalized hostility toward Israel.”