An Israeli group that helps survivors of sexual abuse launched a report on Wednesday concluding that acts of sexual violence towards Israelis throughout and after the Hamas-led assault on Oct. 7 have been “systematic and widespread.”
“The report finds that the Hamas attack included brutal acts of violent rape, often involving threats with weapons, specifically directed towards injured women,” stated the group, The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, an umbrella group of 9 such organizations in Israel. The report added that many incidents concerned gang rape.
“Often, the rape was perpetrated in front of an audience — partners, family or friends — in a manner intended to increase the pain and humiliation of all present,” the report stated.
The attackers additionally “cut and mutilated sexual organs and other body parts with knives,” the report stated.
The report asserted that its data and evaluation “clearly demonstrates that sexual abuse was not an isolated incident or sporadic cases but rather a clear operational strategy.”
Based on evaluation of the knowledge collected by the group, the report concluded that intercourse crimes have been dedicated towards individuals at a rave website, in kibbutzim and at navy bases and towards hostages held in Gaza.
The report was based mostly on testimonies, interviews with emergency medical employees and articles, together with a monthslong investigation revealed by The New York Times in late December, which documented a sample of gender-based violence within the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault.
The topic of sexual violence has been among the many extra contentious points of the Oct. 7 assault. Multiple information organizations have reported allegations of sexual violence in the course of the assault, and The Times, on Dec. 28, included accounts from a number of eyewitnesses who stated they noticed girls being sexually assaulted and killed.
The Times seen images and movies of girls’s our bodies that bore indicators suggestive of sexual assault and mutilation. The Times additionally spoke with emergency responders who stated they discovered our bodies of bare or half-naked girls and women who appeared to have been sexually assaulted.
Some critics on social media have challenged these findings, saying there was not sufficient forensic proof to substantiate the claims. Experts have stated that it’s not uncommon for such proof to be minimal in instances of wartime sexual violence.
Women’s advocacy teams in Israel have denounced the pushback, saying that the quite a few and detailed allegations that Israeli girls have been brutally attacked that day have been held to totally different requirements than allegations of girls in different places who claimed to have been victimized.
Demonstrators in Israel, indignant at what they think about a sluggish response by the U.N. and different worldwide organizations, have chanted at protests, “Me too, unless you’re a Jew!”
Hamas, which the United States and the European Union think about a terrorist group, has repeatedly denied that its fighters perpetrated sexual violence on Oct. 7. For occasion, three days after the Times investigation was revealed, Hamas stated in an announcement that the group’s leaders “categorically deny such allegations” and known as it part of Israel’s try and justify the killing of Palestinian civilians.
Hamas has maintained that its fighters’ “religion, values and culture” forbid such acts, and that, as Muslims, they’re “honor-bound to respect and protect all women.” The group has stated it welcomes any worldwide inquiries into allegations of sexual violence.
In late January, a U.N. group visited Israel to look at these stories, led by Pramila Patten, the U.N. secretary-general’s particular consultant on sexual violence in battle. Ms. Patten’s workplace stated she’s going to share some preliminary findings and that extra data shall be included in her workplace’s annual report on sexual violence in battle.
Orit Sulitzeanu, the chief director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, stated in a information launch that the report was submitted to determination makers on the U.N. “Silence is no longer an option,” she stated. “We expect international organizations to take a clear stance; we cannot stand on the sidelines.”
