The rape allegations have not been debunked. The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict just yesterday announced convincing evidence not just of organized sexual violence on October 7th, but of sexual violence against the hostages themselves, including evidence that such abuse is ongoing. It's been a Twitter talking point for the last 2 weeks that the rape accusations are hoaxes; some of that is the New York Times fault for mishandling a story, and some of it is a credulous alternative media that platforms Syrian genocide deniers, but at any rate: the consensus among serious people seems to be that the sexual violence narrative is substantiated.
This is one of those things that you can probably reasonably debate, if you're extraordinarily careful how you write about it (is it worth it? it's not as if it changes the calculus of how horrible Hamas is), but you can't reasonably claim is "debunked".
(The comment you were replying to was dismissive and uncivil; I'm just taking issue with a specific point you raised.)
While the allegations are credible (off course they are, these are a bunch of violent men brutalizing civilians) they have been far from proven. But what has been pretty much debunked at this point is Hamas using sexual violence as a weapon of war.
We know what using sexual violence as a weapon of war looks like as we have plenty of evidence the Israel army doing exactly that and we have no evidence of Hamas doing it.
> some of that is the New York Times fault for mishandling a story
This is putting it mildly. The NYT propagandized these allegations to support a pro-Israeli narrative. What they did was not only lie about Hamas’ true crimes, but also use a horrible crime—which no doubt some victims of oct. 7 experienced—as a way to justify other horrible crimes, including other sexual violence committed by the IDF in the aftermath.
Nothing about this story has been debunked. Past that, there's no chance we're going to have a useful discussion resolving the issue. The bar we need to clear is simply civility and good faith; the term "debunk", like "misinformation", applied to anything other than things completely discredited, flunks both those tests. When the UN is going out of its way to say that Hamas has and continues to use sexual violence, you may retain the ability to keep debating the issue, but you've lost the use of the word "debunk".
> "The comment you were replying to was dismissive and uncivil"
Fascinating. The person you replied to unleashed a barrage of toxic misinformation, including absurd claims about nobody being tortured on Oct7, and that Israel killed the music festival attendees, among other propaganda nuggets.
They also frame Oct7 as a strategic positive, based on the "killing" of normalized relations between Israel and Arab countries. You replied to a pro-Hamas supporter, basically. I don't want to debate it now, but you were doing well countering the misinformation about the rape allegations, and about "debunking" in general. Then you added an unnecessary evaluation of my post.
Is "more right" even possible? I don't want to be "more right"!
Static charge emerges from the process of disagreement on these and other crisis subjects. Calm diplomacy is main goal but occasionally something unexpectedly ferocious latches to your ankle, and calmly ushering the threat from your ankle becomes the lesser option of a more animated response.
This is one of those things that you can probably reasonably debate, if you're extraordinarily careful how you write about it (is it worth it? it's not as if it changes the calculus of how horrible Hamas is), but you can't reasonably claim is "debunked".
(The comment you were replying to was dismissive and uncivil; I'm just taking issue with a specific point you raised.)