Throughout the genocide, IDF soldiers have looted the homes and belongings of Palestinians. There are videos online of soldiers rummaging through boxes of clothing and jewelry in destroyed homes. In a Facebook group, an Israeli woman posted a photo of a plastic bag full of makeup, with a caption asking what she should do with the “gifts from Gaza” that her husband, an IDF soldier, brought back for her.
Eyeshadow palettes and underwear: these objects have intimate relationships with their wearers, and that’s what makes it insidiously violative to loot as a “gift” or “trophy.” This perverse practice of stealing Palestinian women’s personal objects—objects that touch a skin, a body—and treating them as “souvenirs” of conquest to gift to their wives is a form of sexual violence. The production and circulation of these images among the Israeli military is a tactic to perpetuate violence against Palestinian bodies, beyond and without physical contact.