Until the end of the horror. Hamas attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 resulted in systematic and deliberate sexual violence, an Israeli organization said in a report released Wednesday. Israeli officials have accused Hamas of increasing sexual abuses there, including rape and genital mutilation, which the Palestinian movement has always denied.
The lack of direct and public reports from survivors and the lack of forensic expertise have not yet made it possible to draw a clear picture of these abuses and their extent. The report by the Association of Rape Support Centers in Israel (ARCCI), which oversees sexual violence centers across the country, describes these abuses as an integral part of the October 7 attacks.
In this context, he highlights the “commonalities” of all attacks – against the Nova music festival, kibbutzim, military bases and against the people taken hostage. Sexual violence there was committed “systematically and deliberately against Israeli civilians,” says the report, which is based on statements and interviews with witnesses (but not victims) that were sometimes reported in the media.
“Rapes, many of them in meetings, at gunpoint”
He specifically mentions “rapes, many at meetings, at gunpoint.” The report specifically quotes a survivor of the Nova festival attack who describes “an apocalypse of corpses, of naked girls, sometimes on the upper body, sometimes on the buttocks.” At Kibbutz Beeri, where 90 residents were killed, rescuers said they found “bodies with signs of sexual assault.”
Sexual assaults were also recorded in the attacked military bases, the report says, citing in particular a soldier stationed at one of these bases who said he saw at least ten bodies of female soldiers that clearly showed signs of sexual violence.
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Hostages who have since been released also spoke of sexual assaults. Like Chen and Agam Goldstein, who, upon their release after 51 days in detention, said they encountered “at least three female hostages who were sexually abused during their captivity.” The report, which contains sometimes gruesome descriptions, also mentions mutilations of victims, including men.
Complex investigations
These allegations are the subject of complex investigations in Israel, complicated by the lack of an autopsy in the chaos of the days after the attack and by Jewish religious tradition recommending a speedy burial of the deceased.
The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, visited Israel at the end of January and called on women victims of alleged sexual crimes there on October 7 to “break the silence” and tell what they had suffered.
In early December, Unicef condemned the “sexual violence” committed against Israeli women on October 7, a condemnation that Israel considered late and inadequate because it did not mention its perpetrators, Hamas gunmen.