The latest revelations about Israel's brutal torture of Palestinian prisoners, including rape and sexual violence, have once again exposed the horrific reality of Palestinian life under unending Israeli settler colonial occupation. Anyone with basic human decency is horrified and enraged by the accounts revealed.

This is not the first time we have heard of sexual violence, rape, and other forms of psychological and physical torture in Israeli prisons. Scholars and civil society organizations have documented such atrocities for decades. Before October 2023, conditions in Israeli prisons had already worsened since the 2010s. Over the past two and a half years, these conditions have deteriorated substantially.

During this period, another disturbing feature of Israeli violence has emerged: the glee with which violence is carried out. Testimonies of Palestinian detainees show that Israeli guards not only commit torture regularly but do so while laughing. This raises the question: who finds such acts of torture a source of pleasure? Under what conditions is laughter seen as an appropriate reaction to torture?

Over the past two and a half years of ongoing genocide, we have witnessed dozens of Israeli soldiers recording themselves committing genocidal acts—destroying homes, massacring civilians including children, stealing property—while showing visible glee. Al Jazeera's Investigative Unit created a database showcasing such videos.

Israeli propaganda has long promoted the idea that Israelis view killing and torture as tragic but necessary. However, since the second Intifada and especially after the 2007 siege of Gaza, the concept of "shooting and crying" has faded. Israeli society increasingly celebrates the efficiency of its soldiers in killing Palestinians.

This gleeful violence is not peculiar to Israeli nationality or Jewish identity, but is the predictable outcome of a state and society saturated with settler colonial violence and a racist worldview. Settler colonialism requires the dehumanization of indigenous inhabitants and the association of violence with rewards.

A society that celebrates such atrocious violence with glee is incapable of reforming from within. The only solution is to remove the rewards of its violence. Israel must be seriously punished, at minimum through total economic isolation. If the world does not force Israel to meet basic moral principles, the shame that falls on Israeli society should also befall the nations enabling its gleeful violence.

Source: www.aljazeera.com