An Israeli group that helps survivors of sexual abuse released 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 assault included brutal acts of violent rape, typically involving threats with weapons, particularly directed in the direction of injured ladies,” mentioned the group, The Affiliation of Rape Disaster Facilities in Israel, an umbrella group of 9 such organizations in Israel. The report added that many incidents concerned gang rape.
“Usually, the rape was perpetrated in entrance of an viewers — companions, household or associates — in a way supposed to extend the ache and humiliation of all current,” the report mentioned.
The attackers additionally “lower and mutilated sexual organs and different physique components with knives,” the report mentioned.
The report asserted that its info and evaluation “clearly demonstrates that sexual abuse was not an remoted incident or sporadic circumstances however somewhat a transparent operational technique.”
Primarily 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 primarily based on testimonies, interviews with emergency medical staff and articles, together with a monthslong investigation printed by The New York Instances in late December, which documented a pattern of gender-based violence within the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault.
The topic of sexual violence has been among the many extra contentious features of the Oct. 7 assault. A number of news organizations have reported allegations of sexual violence in the course of the assault, and The Instances, on Dec. 28, included accounts from a number of eyewitnesses who mentioned they noticed ladies being sexually assaulted and killed.
The Instances seen pictures and movies of ladies’s our bodies that bore indicators suggestive of sexual assault and mutilation. The Instances additionally spoke with emergency responders who mentioned they discovered our bodies of bare or half-naked ladies and ladies 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. Specialists have mentioned that it’s not uncommon for such proof to be minimal in circumstances of wartime sexual violence.
Girls’s advocacy teams in Israel have denounced the pushback, saying that the quite a few and detailed allegations that Israeli ladies have been brutally attacked that day have been held to totally different requirements than allegations of ladies somewhere else who claimed to have been victimized.
Demonstrators in Israel, indignant at what they take into account a gradual response by the U.N. and different worldwide organizations, have chanted at protests, “Me too, except you’re a Jew!”
Hamas, which the United States and the European Union consider a terrorist group, has repeatedly denied that its fighters perpetrated sexual violence on Oct. 7. For example, three days after the Instances investigation was printed, Hamas mentioned in a press release that the group’s leaders “categorically deny such allegations” and referred to as it part of Israel’s try and justify the killing of Palestinian civilians.
Hamas has maintained that its fighters’ “faith, values and tradition” forbid such acts, and that, as Muslims, they’re “honor-bound to respect and defend all ladies.” The group has mentioned it welcomes any worldwide inquiries into allegations of sexual violence.
In late January, a U.N. team visited Israel to examine these reports, led by Pramila Patten, the U.N. secretary-general’s particular consultant on sexual violence in battle. Ms. Patten’s workplace mentioned she is going to share some preliminary findings and that further info will probably be included in her workplace’s annual report on sexual violence in conflict.
Orit Sulitzeanu, the manager director of the Affiliation of Rape Disaster Facilities in Israel, mentioned in a information launch that the report was submitted to resolution makers on the U.N. “Silence is now not an possibility,” she mentioned. “We anticipate worldwide organizations to take a transparent stance; we can’t stand on the sidelines.”
