Israel/Palestine

A history and civics teacher working at a school in the central city of Petah Tikva was arrested Friday for appearing to justify rape and other atrocities committed by Hamas during its October 7 onslaught, police said.

“Israeli soldiers didn’t rape Palestinians? They have since 1948, and this doesn’t make it into the textbooks,” the suspect claimed on a messaging group with other teachers following the outbreak of the war last month, apparently commenting on accounts that Hamas terrorists had raped women during their murderous onslaught in southern Israel.

“An occupied nation is allowed to do anything that is needed in order to succeed in its struggle,” he wrote in a separate instance, appearing to justify the atrocities committed by Hamas, whose terrorists murdered around 1,200 people, mostly civilians butchered in their homes and at a music festival, and kidnapped at least 244 to Gaza.

According to media outlets, the suspect has a history of expressing support for terror, disparaging security forces, and even eulogizing a terrorist.

The suspect once labeled Israeli Air Force pilots as “child murderers” and encouraged high school students to refuse to serve in the army. Earlier in the year, he wrote that someone who carried out a car-ramming attack “was not a terrorist,” and he has also made online posts encouraging attacks on soldiers and police officers.