Hamas terrorists raped women during an attack on Israel. Most of the victims did not survive

Witnesses, experts and Israeli police are talking about this

Hamas terrorists, when attacking Israel, killed civilians on October 7 and raped women of all ages. This was told by the surviving witnesses, volunteers who were searching for the bodies of those killed in kibbutses and at the Supernova festival, as well as experts identifying the dead in the morgues. According to them, some women have broken pelvic bones and numerous bruises and breaks are visible, indicating violence. There are almost no survivors after rape, the militants killed them, often with shots in the head. According to the Israeli authorities, rape was part of Hamas tactics during the attack. Journalists of the BBC and The Sunday Times gathered evidence of eyewitnesses and representatives of the Israeli police about such cases. "Medusa" retells that this is known.

Warning. In this text there are descriptions of the scenes of sexualized violence and murders that can shock you. If this is unacceptable to you, do not read it.

The Israeli police provided the BBC journalists with a video with the testimony of a woman (she is called “Witness S.”, who became a witness to group rape at the Supernova festival. She said that she saw how several Hamas fighters surrounded the girl and one of them began to rape her. After he “handed it over” to others. At that moment, the witness said, the girl was alive - she stood on her feet, her blood flowed on her back. According to the witness, then one of the fighters took the girl behind her hair and cut her chest with a knife. “They cut her breasts and threw her into the street. They played with her, ”she said. Having finished torture, the Hamas fighters shot the girl in the head.

The visitor of the festival Yoni Saadon told The Sunday Times that at the time of the attack he managed to hide under the stage. From there, he saw how eight or nine militants Hamas beat and raped a woman “with the face of an angel”, how he describes her. According to him, she screamed: “Enough! I will die from what you are doing, just kill me. ” Having finished, the militants began to laugh, and then shot her in the head.

Another visitor to the festival told BBC that he heard the cries of victims. Some women, as they say in his testimony, were subjected to violence by still alive, others were already dead.

Cases of rape were also told by the volunteers of the OKA organization, who helped to collect the bodies of the dead at the festival and in kibbutz, attacked by terrorists. According to them, they found many bodies of women in torn clothes and naked below the belt. One of the volunteers claims that he saw the bodies of two women tied to the bed in Beeri's kibbutz. One of them was stuck a knife between the legs. “BBC” notes that he cannot check these indications. Some of the certificates of volunteers were called into question by the Israeli media, journalists write.

In one of the videos that the Hamas militants themselves published, a girl captured hostage is shown. She was handed over to the handcuffs, behind her pants - a large spot of blood. In other videos, you can notice naked or doused women who were taken away by the militants. In the photo from the scene of the attack, the bodies of women naked below the belt were also visible, with extended legs and traces of injuries on the genitals. In some photos, according to The Sunday Times, the girls have a pelvic bone broken.

The Israeli police said that she had not yet interviewed the surviving women who suffered from sexualized violence. However, according to the Minister of Israel to promote women's rights, May Golan, there are very few of them - most women raped by militants were killed. Golan spoke with at least three witnesses of rape - during the attack of terrorists, the girls pretended to be dead and watched what was happening. Now they are hospitalized and are in a very serious mental state.

As noted by the General of the Israeli Police, Yaakov Shabtai, it is difficult for many survivors to speak and recall what happened. And some, as he suggests, will never testify about what they saw or survived. According to him, after the attack, 18 young men and women were hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals, because "they could no longer function."

Investigators say that in the first days after the attack, when the militants still continued to be in Israel, many crimes were difficult to document. Then the bodies of the dead were delivered to Shura’s military base.

The reserve from the forensic group, Captain Maian (her surname is not given) told the BBC that experts recorded obvious signs of rape-broken pelvic bones, bruises, breaks on the bodies of women and girls of all ages. In private conversations, experts talk about the “dozens” of raped and killed, but it’s difficult to calculate exactly - only parts of the bodies remained from some victims, and it is impossible to determine whether the woman was raped.

Against the backdrop of reports on rape of Hamas militants and the absence of any reaction of international organizations in Israel, a public commission of women working in various fields appeared-they collect evidence of what happened. The commission was headed by an expert on the legal issues of the Institute of International Relations of Davis at the Jewish University of Kokhav Elkyam-Levy. She stated that she sees a pattern in rape and does not consider them an accident. “They [Hamas militants] came with a clear order. It was a rape as genocide, ”said Elkayam-Levy.

According to the Israeli human rights activist and lawyer, Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Hamas planned to use sexualized violence in advance as weapons of war. According to BBC, the Israeli government published personnel of interrogations of captured militants, where they say that women were persecuted, among other things, for the purpose of violence. The fact that the rape was part of the Hamas strategy also said the permanent representative of Israel at the UN Giladan Erdan.

The expert of the Israeli combat against cybercrime, David Katz, participating in the investigation of the Hamas attack on Israel, says that it is unambiguous to call the sexualized violence part of the attack plan, but the data extracted from terrorist phones suggests that the rape was “systematic”.

US President Joe Biden called the rape of Israeli women militants "unimaginable cruelty." “Messages that women were raped - and repeatedly - and their bodies were mutilated during their lifetime; The fact that they were defiled, that Hamas terrorists caused so much pain and suffering to women and girls as possible, and then killed them - terrifying, ”he said on December 6 in Boston.

Earlier, the UN said that they were “alarmed” by numerous reports of sexualized violence during the Hamas attack and called for an investigation. “We repeat that all women, Israeli and Palestinian, like everyone else, have the right to life in safety and without violence,” the UN Women’s statement, who is engaged in the struggle for gender equality and the expansion of the rights and capabilities of women, said in a statement of the UN.

The rape committed by the Hamas fighters also spoke in UNICEF. “Messages about the sexualized violence that occurred on October 7 in Israel are horrified. The survivors must be heard, supported and careful. The accusations should be completely investigated, ” wrote the executive director of the organization Katherine Russell.

In Israel, the reaction of international organizations was condemned. “On October 7, Israel survived the most cruel massacre since the Holocaust. The atrocities were more barbaric than that of ISIS , some say that even more than during the Nazis. <...> Unfortunately, the silence of international organizations that allegedly protect women was deafening, ” said the Permanent Representative of Israeli Giladan at a special Session of the UN on December 5.

Hamas charges of sexualized violence was called part of the "Zionist campaign, which promotes unreasonable lies." The adviser to the head of the political bureau of the Islamist movement Taher al-Nono called for the "serious and impartial international investigation of this case."