A guest post from Carlos:

In today’s Ha’aretz, Amira Hass aired some of Israel’s dirty feces-stained laundry. The title of her piece said it all: “Pots of urine, feces in the refrigerator – how IDF troops vandalized Gaza homes.”

In this exposé, Hass reminds everyone about the IDF’s lack of morality and honor even after occupying, dispossessing, and besieging Gazans.

Hass relates the story of the Abu Eida family and the ordeal they survived for the duration of Operation Cast Lead, when their home became a prison and a station for soldiers deployed to Gaza:

The soldiers ordered the five people to go into one room and stay there. They let them take some food: bread, olives, oil, water. They confiscated the mobile phones when they saw Na’ama (one of the family members) holding one.

‘You want to call your brother to come with Hamas, to shoot at us,’ said one of the soldiers. ‘Liar,’ they said a lot, as well as ‘shut up, you donkey,’ in broken Arabic. They imitated her mockingly when she said “Ya Rab” (“Oh God”).

The five prisoners could not pray, as they were not allowed to clean themselves up before prayer and were forbidden to stand up. They were given two blankets, which were not enough, especially because the windows were smashed and the door was always open. A soldier always sat next to the door aiming his rifle at them. All five still have colds.

To add insult to bombardment, the soldiers left “plastic bottles of urine and many closed bags – in some houses, olive-colored ones – of excrement.” Other houses had excrement smeared on the walls; they pissed on clothes and in washing machines. In Jabalya, “they discovered pots of urine and excrement in the refrigerator.”

This mode of degradation is not knew to Israeli forces who occupy Palestinian homes, or official buildings. In 2002, Hass documented the way the boys of the IDF defaced and defiled the Palestinian Ministry of Culture and other government buildings. As Hass wrote then, “Someone even managed to defecate into the photocopier.”

People will argue, as Elie Wiesel has in times past that “War has its own rules” and that Israeli soldiers simply stated,”“did what they ha[d] to do.”

I’m not sure why they had to do any of these juvenile and chauvinistic antics — other than the fact they are servants of a juvenile and chauvinistic ideology advocated by a childish, anachronistic and adventurist state.

Relative to other places, the soldiers did not leave behind them many sayings scrawled on the walls. They have become even more baboon-like and less humans, which imply the ability to articulate thinking.

Here and there, they left graffiti in the form of symbols of Israel, stars of David, and bragging about the Jerusalem Betar soccer team. Again, the inability to articulate coherent thinking.

Related posts:

1. Israel Destroys Synagogues
2. Homeless in Gaza
3. Our word: A murmur, a loud voice, and then a shout they hear in Gaza
4. Israeli Soldiers Evacuate 110 Civilians into House, then Shell Said House
5. Footage of Israeli Soldiers Beating Palestinian Children