'Awful, disgusting': Swiss women indignant over Israeli soldiers violating Palestinian women's privacy

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

GENEVA (AA) - Unacceptable, awful, disgusting, disrespectful. These were the words that encapsulated the outrage women in the Swiss city of Geneva felt as they viewed images out of the Gaza Strip, where male Israeli soldiers posed with the lingerie and underwear of Palestinian women taken from the homes of displaced Gazans.

"They're (photos) absurd, aren't they?" Viviane Nascimento, 38, told Anadolu.

"The fact that these soldiers do this shows their intention, a very sad intention towards women."

"It's really absurd and unacceptable," Nascimento, who is from Portugal but studies in Geneva, stressed.

In a message to Gazan women for International Women's Day, she urged that they not let go of hope. "We're rooting for them all to come out of this okay."

Lydia Favre, 25, said that seeing those photos caused her "a lot of frustration."

"I don't know how to describe what I felt, but it just made me angry," Favre said, adding: "I see those pictures as very disrespectful to women and there is no place for such attitudes."

Natacha, a local Swiss woman at the age of 51, described the photos as "awful."

"I'm not really comfortable seeing these pictures. I don't know what they thought while holding those (lingerie and underwear) like trophies but I don't like it," she said.

"I find it disrespectful," she fumed, lamenting the occurrence of such disturbing acts against women in any part of the world.

- Accountability needed

Eva Sargsyan, a 19-year-old Armenian student who resides in Geneva, spoke to Anadolu, underlining that nothing could justify the behavior of the Israeli soldiers and that they needed to be held accountable.

"There is no justification for these photos," Sargsyan said. "Mocking women in this way is completely horrible. It is just disgusting to look at those photos."

"They have to take some accountability for such actions," she said.

Nandita, 24, struck the same note, asserting the scenes in those "disgusting" photos were "not justifiable."

"I feel like a lot of people right now are choosing to ignore these pictures. It's disgusting," she said.

"The idea that you think that it’s okay to do this is not justifiable," she stressed, drawing attention to the way the soldiers had "fun" as they objectified women trying to survive a war.

At least 9,000 Palestinian women have been killed in the Gaza Strip, where the death toll from Israel's ongoing offensive has exceeded 30,700, while over 72,000 others have been injured.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza's population into internal displacement, including about 1 million women, roughly 52,000 of whom are pregnant.

Acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, have meant that many have had to give birth in tents and bathrooms, while others have performed C-sections without anesthesia.

Palestinian groups estimate that thousands of Palestinians have been detained by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel has also imposed a crippling blockade on the seaside enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.