Russia is also included on the UN’s blacklist – and it faces enormous pressure from sanctions. The same consequences must apply to Israel
• Janine di Giovanni is executive director of The Reckoning Project, a war crimes reporting unit in Ukraine, Sudan and Palestine
Yousef, a Palestinian journalist, and I stood on a beach in Gaza during the first intifada – the uprising that began in 1987, defined by popular resistance and young men throwing stones. He was in his early 20s at the time, but he had already spent time in Ansar III, the dreaded Israeli prison in the Negev desert. He had recently been released.
This was before post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was widely understood, but I knew my friend was deeply traumatised. Staring at the sea, his hands shook as we spoke. Even though he was free, he doubted he would ever feel safe again. Prison had meant beatings, torture, sleep deprivation. “The soldiers kept asking me if I wanted to be a woman,” he said. “That is the worst thing – to threaten to destroy your manhood.”
Janine di Giovanni is a war correspondent and the executive director of The Reckoning Project, a war crimes unit in Ukraine, Sudan and Palestine. She is the author of The Morning They Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria
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Russia is also included on the UN’s blacklist – and it faces enormous pressure from sanctions. The same consequences must apply to Israel• Janine di Giovanni is executive director of The Reckoning Project, a war crime...
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