anintrovertedwitch - Tumblr blog

[anintrovertedwitch]

I don't know how to really express this except to come across as a "kids these days" scold, but so much of the criticism of queerness in Good Omens would simply not be a thing if kids these days watched more 20th century queer media. Or more complex indie queer media in general.

People seem to want a show that's like the straight stories they grew up with but gay. Or the gay fanfiction they grew up with. But that's not really the tradition it's coming from. First off the novel was released in 1990. Queer film classics of the time are Dead Poet's Society (1989) and Torch Song Trilogy (1988). The TV miniseries Tales of the City (1993) wasn't made until 3 years later and it was so far out there it never had a huge audience. Philadelphia (1993) is also 3 years out and was basically the first big studio queer film. The first fluffy queer Hallmark-style romcom wasn't until Big Eden in 2000, a full 10 years after publication.

Queer stories from the time it was written were about complex and often fraught relationships between people who the world was trying to force apart. There is an incredibly strong tradition in queer films of relationships with no guarantees they will work out both in the face of their personal baggage and the weight of the world. Take a film like Torch Song Trilogy that's about the two great loves of Arnold Beckoff's life over 9 years and how homophobia shapes them. Both externally (especially Allen) and internally like Ed struggling with his bisexuality and being terrified of being publicly out. Written and starred in by Harvey Fierstein, who identified as a gay man at the time and only came out as nonbinary last year.

The Boys In The Band (1968 play, filmed 1970 and 2020) was a monumental moment in Broadway history where finally there was a play about gay men in their own words where no one died and very strongly showed that homosexuality doesn't make people miserable but homophobia sure does. But that homophobia also throws their personal lives into constant turmoil and none of them are in happy relationships, although Hank and Larry are devoted to each other in their own fucked up way.

"Relationships are complicated and hard to make work and sometimes a struggle against the odds" is an aesthetic of classic queer film making. Partly it was influenced by the Hays Code (although independent films were not bound to it), partly influenced by the rampant queerphobia in society at the time that was inescapable. But it's also an aesthetic choice to resist the banal and unrealistic relationship depictions of straight media. There are actual stakes to the relationship. Queer people were actively resisting a world that said "Romance is seeing someone across the room and instantly falling in love with each other and little conflicts happen along the way but ultimately they're destined to be together and everything is happily ever after." Recall that "stalking as romance" was a completely inescapable trope in 1980s straight romance films, and every goddamn movie was being turned into a romance film.

So queer people in film and television when they can make what they please have a long tradition of saying instead "People don't always realize the feelings they've developed for a queer partner right away. They may have reasons for denying those feelings that are both a reflection of the cruelty in society and of their own insecurities. People struggle with where they belong and their relationships reflect that. Loving someone doesn't mean they don't also drive you crazy and you might fight with them constantly. But that doesn't negate the love or that feeling that even if things aren't okay, they're better with that person around. But maybe that person can't stay around. The world may be against you. And also maybe you don't just want that one person in your life. Soulmates is a very flawed model. Sometimes the strongest love is a struggle with yourself and the world and your person. You have to overcome yourself first. Happily ever after is a lie. You may be happy for a while, and hopefully for a long while, but everything ends. And you have to be ready to love again. Also your platonic bonds are just as important and life-altering as your romantic ones. Sometimes those platonic bonds include fucking if you want them to. Real life isn't a bunch of platitudes and world-altering moments, it's daily work to better yourself and the world around you. Especially when things just fucking suck. But also remember to have fun and fuck the haters. People who don't support you can eat rocks and you should yell at them more to shut the fuck up."

That is a fundamentally different outlook on what a "good relationship depiction" looks like. Personally, I thought I hated romance movies and then I started watching queer romance movies and discovered I love them and watch them all the time. Because it turns out what I hated was relationships being shown that had nothing at all to do with reality and privileged incredibly toxic ideals. Finally there was complexity, there were stakes, and there were people who had to truly want to be together enough to fight the world for it and not because they happened to be there. There were people actually talking out their problems and looking for resolutions. (And sometimes that resolutions was "I can't fucking deal with this bullshit anymore and I'm out.") For the first time it felt real.

I'm an aroace trans gay man. Nothing about relationships or being in relationships has come easy to me, and the whole paradigm of straight patriarchal romance depictions makes absolutely no sense to me. It's completely alien. Queer romance stories actually feel human.

And that's the tradition Good Omens is coming from, even as it's being retold in 2019-2023 and hopefully beyond. Gaiman's work has always been based in that queer media paradigm. (I've been remiss and daunted and haven't read Pratchett but from what I do know his work also seems to sit more in that world view.) It's a beautiful cinematic tradition and it's baffling to me that people would resist it instead of embracing it for being honest.

And that's when I turn into a crotchety old man complaining about the youth not connecting with the history of their beautiful culture and instead begging for assimilation into a shithole allocishet media landscape that doesn't actually want them except for their money and has nothing at all interesting or valuable to say. But it's very funny (annoying) to me when people claim Good Omens is someone against queer culture when it's so thoroughly bathed in the best of queer media's storytelling traditions and what people are asking for is straight media with the serial numbers filed off. Like, stop being boring please and know literally anything about the culture the adults in the room lived through and were influenced by. The world didn't begin in 2015.

[anintrovertedwitch]

"ok but where would Israeli Jewish ppl go" Palestinians have already created a plan for unity, YOU'RE just horny for this idea of brown "savages" getting revenge. White people did this with indigenous peoples, with freed enslaved people, with apartheid SA...also, if your main concern is the settlers/oppressors while the oppressed people can't even recover their dead to count them... (Insert something that'll have me put on a list)

[anintrovertedwitch]

“genocides can’t be compared because each one is unique” as if literally anyone on planet earth making comparisons between genocides isn’t aware that history is more complicated than a set of infinitely repeating identical events. how fucking condescending can you get. the word genocide is a legal term that is meant to standardise our ability to identify a broad set of violent actions and behaviours as genocide even when they differ in the details, because the outcome is the same - a crime against humanity. if no genocide is comparable then genocide does not exist as a category of crime. to deny the comparability of genocides is tantamount to genocide denial

[anintrovertedwitch]

"They got money for war but can't feed the poor"

Poster spotted in Meanjin / Brisbane

[anintrovertedwitch]

It's a sham. All of it is a sham.

[anintrovertedwitch]

it just broke that israel has seized 1,977 acres of west bank land for settlement, which marks the largest land theft since 1993. west bank raids are also seeing an all-time high, with a a reuters article stating a series of israeli raids raised the palestinian death toll in the west bank to 10. there are palestinians being abducted as well, a lot of whom are children. the west bank is slowly being eaten up by both israeli settlers and raids, but this is barely being covered by mainstream media.

[anintrovertedwitch]

Alright, here we go. My review for The Dabbler's Guide to Witchcraft by Fire Lyte

Final rating: ??/10 - it broke my numbers system.

TL;DR - I like the book. I'm angry at the author. It's great for new practitioners. If you're going to get it, please get it from the Spiral House Shop, get Alex Wrekk's two witchcraft zines to go with it, and go look at/reblog/contribute to the original Dabbler's Week project.

(Also I think this is the longest review I've written yet. I'm sorry.)

This book is very good. I'm mad about that. The author is an excellent writer. I'm mad about that. I want to dislike this book but I can't, and I'm mad about that.

So let's get into the breakdown of why.

First up, a housekeeping thing: "Fire Lyte" is a pen name that I don't believe the author uses anymore, so I will be referring to him as Don Martin, the name he is using on his current projects. I know he's on TikTok, formerly of Inciting a Riot podcast, now of Head on Fire podcast.

Second, some links relevant to the review-which-is-actually-just-a-rant:

The breakdown of things I found that were taken uncredited from Tumblr

I COULD be making this up and reading it in bad faith, but this bit about 'heteronormative marriage' has my alarm bells ringing

Why I hate the title of this book

The original Dabbler's Week project links

Anyway.

I picked this book up specifically because of the title. It's been 3 years since it was published, so it took me a while, but I remember looking at that title when it was first out and thinking "Hey... the timing of this... did this person just wholesale lift the 'Dabbler' idea from Tumblr?"

The answer is: Yes, probably!

(He also summarized the Malachite Dick post from February 2020, but he actually credited Tumblr along with relevant usernames, so that's good and also made me laugh.)

But... yeah. The fact that he's crediting Tumblr from something that specifically happened in February 2020, when the original Dabbler's Week was from late January 2020 and seems to have inspired his whole book? Don, would it have killed you to mention ANYTHING about that project and the people involved?

He's very big on talking about following trails of information, listening to podcasts, listening to the podcasts of people talked about on those podcasts, reading books talked about on those podcast, and so on. But if he doesn't start off by saying "Dabbler's Week was a project issued by asksecularwitch on Tumblr", then how is anyone supposed to follow THAT chain of information, hmm? If his whole advice on finding good witchcraft resources is to follow the chain of people who are sharing information from each other, but he makes no mention of where he got the whole idea for his book, then what?

Side rant: I'm real tired of how Tumblr information is simultaneously treated as too shitty to ever bother reading or mentioning, but good enough to screenshot, repost on other sites, recite word-for-word on tiktok, and apparently write a book about.

ANYWAY. I'm angry about it. I'm gonna be angry about it. Here, please look at these links to the shenanigans that began the original Dabbler's Week, because Don certainly won't tell you about this part.

Anyway.

Some bad things:

I mean, the plagiarism. I keep hesitating to use the word 'plagiarism', because to me that seems like wholesale lifting entire works and slapping your name on them, when all Don did was fail to credit a few Tumblr users he quoted. But then again, if I did that on a research paper in college, it would be called plagiarism, so.

This book is in fact not a great guide for 'dabblers'. The point of Dabbler's Week was that if someone didn't know if they wanted to commit to witchcraft but wanted to fuck around with casting some spells for a week to try it out, there were week-long guides on things someone could do to try that. This book is not for fucking around with magic, it's for people who are already sure that they want to make this a thing in their lives. It handles some heavier topics (e.g. vetting mentors and not getting sucked into a cult) that are very very important for someone who is BEGINNING, but may be too much for someone who just says one day "lol I think I'll cast a spell for fun". A far more accurate title would have been "The Beginner's Guide to Witchcraft", but then he'd lose that punchy and marketable and googleable term 'dabbler'. (Yes, I'm going to be petty about this.)

"Wow Jes, it sounds like you really hated this book."

NO I DIDN'T, AND I'M SO MAD ABOUT THAT!

Some good things:

The author has a writing style that I enjoyed very much. This is a personal preference, but I like when books are either written so that the author is fully invisible (Bree Landwalker's books do this wonderfully), or the author is fully visible, like they're sitting at the table having a conversation with you (Kelly-Ann Maddox's 'Rebel Witch' comes to mind, as does Alex Wrekk's 'Brainscan 33: DIY Witchery'). Don Martin is the table conversation kind. That makes this book very easy to read, while also getting information across in an easily-understood sort of way.

This book fills a very necessary gap in modern witching books. It talks about the online community of witches, and a lot of the pitfalls that have come along with the bonuses of having so much witchcraft available at our social-media connected fingertips.

He gets very in depth with things like cultural appropriation. That's something that you can find in a lot of modern witch books, but Don actually spends the time breaking the concept down and explaining WHY it's harmful, HOW it affects people, and quotes people from the affected minority groups. I have seen the appropriation topic come up in a lot of the witch books I've read, but Don is the one who has covered the topic the best, imo.

He spends time on topics that I myself would have been dismissive of. The example that comes to mind is the chapter 'Can I Make Sh*t Up?' My knee jerk reaction was "Yes, you can make your own spells, you don't need to get someone else's permission. Next question." But Don goes through the full breakdown of yes you can make up your own spells, yes you can make your own correspondences, but no that doesn't mean you can just throw a water soluble crystal in your water bottle because you think it's good for cleansing.

Actually on that topic, he covers a lot of the why not just the what. It's not just 'appropriation is bad', it's 'and here's why'. It's not just 'research your herbs', it's 'here's some examples of things that can and have gone wrong.'

SPELL CANVASES! There are 11 'spell canvases' in this book, and they're pretty much all just kids/teens science experiments (e.g. dissolving an egg shell in vinegar, lighting a tea bag on fire so it flies, and using food dye to color a white flower). He does not give intentions for these spells, but gives a spell technique and then some examples of how you could apply your own purpose/intention to it as needed. It's actually pretty smart, and now I wish there was more stuff like this.

He actually explains what UPG means. Man, 'UPG' is one of those things that I keep seeing as a 'I don't know what that means and I'm to afraid to ask' blog post. When someone pops into the witchy social media circles, we can throw the term 'UPG' around as if everyone knows what it means, and forget to actually explain that it's Unverified Personal Gnosis and what that means. Don's got us covered. Good on you, Don.

The one throwaway line about why you don't have to buy fancy witch things. Tucked away in chapter 12 is this almost nothing-sentence mentioning why you shouldn't be "going broke hoping to buy your way into 'effective' magic" (pg. 161). I have seen, reblogged, probably written posts about 'No you don't need the fancy tools! You can just use whatever! But you CAN buy them if you want, you just don't NEED them.' And we've all seen those around, right? But damn, if Don didn't just get to the heart of it. You can't buy your way into skill. YES, Don, THAT!! THANK YOU.

Alright. I'm running out of words. This isn't a review, it's a rant. Holy shit. Let me shut up with a TL;DR

Almost without doubt, Don liked Tumblr's idea enough to write a book about it, but failed to give credit. But he's an excellent writer and covers a lot of topics that are not often written about in printed books, and to get those blogosphere-ideas onto bookshelves is invaluable. This is a good book for beginners starting out in witchcraft, but not for dabblers who just want to screw around with some spells. Do the pros outweigh the cons? Is it ethical to buy a book when the author gets royalties but the bloggers he got the idea from do not? I don't know. I can't tell you that. You'll have to weigh all this against your own moral compass and decide for yourself. My recommendation is that if you're going to buy it, please buy it from the Spiral House Shop, because if Don Martin's going to get paid for this book, Alex Wrekk should too. Buy Alex's zines. Reblog Sec's posts. Links are up at the top.

[anintrovertedwitch]

[anintrovertedwitch]

“I would buy a mansion” “I would buy designer” “I’m getting a pool” Don’t give me that lame ass if I won the lottery shit. You’re all pathetic. If I came into a significant amount of money, you know what I’d do? I’d go to the Ren Faire, B-line straight to the cloaks. I’m talking floor length, heavy, wool, felted details, huge hooded cloaks that are like 450 a piece and all handmade and I’d get me one. Maybe even get one of the smaller ones that hangs off the shoulders and lands just above the elbow that are 90 by themselves. And I’d be the baddest bitch around because I’d wear that shit everywhere. It’s 115 degrees? I’m sorry do I look like I give a fuck? I have a cloak bitch I don’t need your fahrenheit bullshit. And you’re a FOOL if you wouldn’t do the same.

[anintrovertedwitch]

“How can you be Jewish and support Palestine???”

It’s easy really. Other than having a soul, it’s because when the Nazis had our people in ghettos, when we were sent to death camps, when we asked for help and nobody listened. We know what it’s like to be begging for someone to listen. Because we know what the pain of loss, of starvation, of losing your home, of being mocked and dehumanised and othered feels like. Because we know that no life is above anothers.

[anintrovertedwitch]

However, the "international" character of the Zionist activities did not altogether suit the British imperialists. Anxious to seize Palestine in order to safeguard British interests In the Middle East, they decided to utilize the Zionist leaders for this purpose, luring them with the promise to establish a Jewish State in Palestine.

The Zionist leaders were quite willing to harness themselves to the chariot of British imperialism[…]

From the CIA file “Zionist Agents in the American Secret Service” [Also available in our Google Doc, pinned to our profile!]

So, again, evidence this is not about Hamas.

[anintrovertedwitch]

The discussion on whiteness y'all are having makes a lot of sense and resonates with my experience as a white person as well. As a disabled queer person whilst I still very much experience white privilege, I very much feel like abled cishet white people think I'm doing whiteness wrong.

And I'd say if there was a "white culture" it'd hinge entirely on appearances. I cannot speak for people of color who struggle with their parents but my experience and a lot of experiences I know from white people with toxic/abusive parents they have to look and feel like very good people like it goes beyond just wanting to appeal to others to avoid consequences the like worst thing you can do in a white family is be honest about anything?

In my own family we all hate each other and always have hated each other and still we coexist in a way that protects all of us and makes things easier for us and I think that on a wider scale that's how whiteness operates and also why when white people emphasize how much they hate other white people that's completely meaningless because like. Yeah of course you do we all very much hate each other but that doesn't mean that we aren't complicit in whiteness because of the ways it benefits us? When you're white then the white people around you fully expect that even if you despised every inch of them that you would defend them if they were being racist or will be complicit in their actions just out of sheer obligation to whiteness.

I think that part of the reason the ways marginalized white people experience oppression tends to be a lot more emotional manipulation and gaslighting + infantilization rather than outward aggression/hostility is because if we have a community/culture not tied to our race that gives us actual loyalties and will make us start to criticize whiteness and then things all start to fall apart.

Especially if you're white american the last thing any white person wants you to have is a semblance of genuine culture, if you're disabled and queer and other things that they want to portray as being a nonwhite and "lesser" thing they will go to lengths to either convince you that you aren't those things at all, to minimize things to say well at least you're not like Others (see: additionally marginalized people of color), and if that fails to take their autonomy in such a way that they can eliminate the potential threat. (e.g white people with visible enough psychotic symptoms are highly likely to be incarcerated in psych wards and physically harmed by authorities but those of us who are able to mask our psychosis do not experience the same level of violence at all)

And I think this is really evident when you look at marginalized communities and how white people tend both to dominate discussions and also to minimize that marginalization a lot of white autistic people who arent visibly autistic enough to have to fight for any semblance of autonomy tend to paint autism as being this purely good and special thing where you just have special interests and are a little confused sometimes and are so empathetic(tm)

When you start questioning whiteness too other white people start to treat you a whole lot differently, when I started to notice my own and my family's racist behaviors as a teenager who finally had access to listen to POC talk about their experience and pointed these out to my family I very quickly became mistrusted by them, they stopped telling me important things and would say that clearly I was not interested in participating with family activities and clearly didn't love them. It's like, once you "betray whiteness" you can't really come back from that and I think that's why so many white marginalized people are such aggressive bootlickers because they've never had a loving/genuine sense of community so they think once they're alienated from whiteness that there will be nothing for them because they've never felt genuinely wanted or cared for outside of that.

Of course that's what whiteness wants white people to think, they want us to be afraid of connecting with nonwhite people because if we realize that there are rich cultures that we can connect with unrelated to our whiteness and that we can and will have plenty of genuine connections with POC in our communities and this idea that we're so hated for being white that only other white people could accept us and it's us white people against the world is white supremacist propaganda then white power starts to fall apart.

I don't have anything to add at all, like yeah. Esp that last part?

Because if white supremacists don't have white allyship backing them then they have nothing. Nothing. That's where their white power comes from.

They'd lose all ability to affect our politics, climate, healthcare, etc.

[anintrovertedwitch]

[anintrovertedwitch]

Johnathan Glazer, Oscar winning Director of The Zone of Interest, a movie depicting the wickedness of apathy during the Holocaust:

“Our film shows where dehumanisation leads at it's worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether they be the victims of October 7th or the ongoing attack on Gaza. All the victims of this dehumanisation. How do we resist? Alexandria, the girl who glows in the film as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and her resistance.”

[anintrovertedwitch]

Palestinian men detained by Israeli forces since the start of the war in Gaza have told Middle East Eye how they were physically tortured with dogs and electricity, subjected to mock executions, and held in humiliating and degrading conditions. In testimonies to MEE, one man, who was taken by Israeli forces from a school in Gaza where he had sought refuge with his family, described how he had been handcuffed, blindfolded, and detained in a metal cage for 42 days. During interrogations, he said he had been given electric shocks, as well as scratched and bitten by army dogs. Other men also described being electrocuted, attacked by dogs, doused with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and subjected to constant loud music. “They did not spare anyone. There were 14-year-old boys and 80-year-old men,” said one of the men, Moaz Muhammad Khamis Miqdad, who was taken prisoner in Gaza City in December and held for more than 30 days.

[anintrovertedwitch]

Israel tortured UNRWA staff to falsely admit that they are with Hamas

Source

March 8 (Reuters) - The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said some employees released into Gaza from Israeli detention reported having been pressured by Israeli authorities into falsely stating that the agency has Hamas links and that staff took part in the Oct. 7 attacks.

The assertions are contained in a report by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reviewed by Reuters and dated February 2024 which detailed allegations of mistreatment in Israeli detention made by unidentified Palestinians, including several working for UNRWA.

UNRWA communications director Juliette Touma said the agency planned to hand the information in the 11-page, unpublished report to agencies inside and outside the U.N. specialised in documenting potential human rights abuses.

"When the war comes to an end there needs to be a series of inquiries to look into all violations of human rights," she said.

The document said several UNRWA Palestinian staffers had been detained by the Israeli army, and added that the ill-treatment and abuse they said they had experienced included severe physical beatings, waterboarding, and threats of harm to family members.

In addition to the alleged abuse endured by UNRWA staff members, Palestinian detainees more broadly described allegations of abuse, including beatings, humiliation, threats, dog attacks, sexual violence, and deaths of detainees denied medical treatment, the UNRWA report said.

OPERATIONS IN CRISIS

UNRWA, which provides aid and essential services to Palestinian refugees, is at the centre of a crisis over Israeli allegations made in January that 12 of its 13,000 staff in Gaza took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

The Israeli accusations led 16 countries including the United States to pause $450 million in UNRWA funding, throwing its operations into crisis. UNRWA fired some staff members, saying it acted in order to protect the agency's ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, and an independent internal U.N. investigation was launched.

Norway, which has continued to finance the agency, said on March 6 that many countries that paused their funding are likely having second thoughts and payments could resume soon.

Reuters could not independently confirm the accounts of coercion of UNRWA staff and mistreatment of detainees, although the allegations of ill-treatment accord with descriptions by Palestinians freed from detention in December, February and March reported by Reuters and other news media.

Asked by Reuters for comment on the range of allegations in the report, an Israeli military spokesperson didn't specifically respond to allegations of UNRWA staff being coerced, but said the Israeli Defense Forces acts in accordance with Israeli and international law to protect the rights of the detainees.

Concrete complaints of inappropriate behaviour are forwarded to the relevant authorities for review, and an investigation is conducted for each death of a detainee by the military police, the spokesperson said, adding Israel denies general and unsubstantiated claims about sexual abuse of detainees.

The spokesperson said freed detainees are subject to Hamas' control and can be forced to denounce Israel or risk "harm".

Responding to that assertion about the detainees' credibility, Touma said the report was based on "first-hand testimonies that people told us. In some cases there were clearly some physical impact on people's bodies. And also psychological impact. So this is what's also been documented."

UNRWA provides education, health and relief services to about 5.7 million registered Palestinian refugees around the Middle East. The U.S. has been by far the biggest donor to its $1.4 billion annual budget.

The Israeli army levelled new accusations at UNRWA on March 4, saying it employed over 450 "military operatives" from Hamas and other armed groups, and that Israel has shared this intelligence with the United Nations.

INTERROGATION

Later that day, the head of UNRWA warned of "a deliberate and concerted campaign" aimed at ending the agency's work, citing comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and destruction of the agency's infrastructure in Gaza.

Asked about the latest Israeli accusations, Touma said UNRWA encouraged any entity with information on the allegations against UNRWA staff to share it with the investigation, which is being conducted by a U.N. oversight body.

Touma told Reuters the document was based on interviews the agency had conducted with dozens of Palestinians freed from Israeli detention to whom UNRWA provided assistance.

She said she could not provide a more detailed figure and did not know how many of the detainees made the allegations about abuse or being coerced into saying UNRWA has Hamas links.

The report focuses on detainees who were taken out of Gaza for extended periods of interrogation before being returned to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing from December to February.

ISRAEL SEEKS UNRWA'S CLOSURE

The report said UNRWA had documented the release of 1,002 detainees at Kerem Shalom aged from six to 82 years-old as of Feb. 19.

The Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault killed 1,200 people in Israel and resulted in another 253 being abducted, according to Israeli tallies. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli offensive launched in response, according to health authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

UNRWA has condemned the Oct. 7 attacks, saying the Israeli allegations against the agency - if true - are a betrayal of U.N. values and of the people UNRWA serves.

The U.N. investigators said on Feb. 29 they expected to receive materials soon from Israel relating to its accusations that UNRWA staffers are members of Hamas.

Israel says UNRWA should be shut down.

Reuters has previously interviewed Palestinians detained by Israel during the conflict who have reported mistreatment. They include three men who said they and fellow detainees had been beaten, stripped to their underwear, and burnt with cigarettes.

The copy of the report viewed by Reuters did not contain any photographs or identify any of the detainees by name.