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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 had 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 girls,” stated 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.
“Typically, the rape was perpetrated in entrance of an viewers — companions, household or mates — in a fashion meant to extend the ache and humiliation of all current,” the report stated.
The attackers additionally “reduce and mutilated sexual organs and different physique elements with knives,” the report stated.
The report asserted that its info and evaluation “clearly demonstrates that sexual abuse was not an remoted incident or sporadic circumstances however fairly a transparent operational technique.”
Based mostly on evaluation of the data collected by the group, the report concluded that intercourse crimes had been dedicated towards folks 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 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 stated they noticed girls being sexually assaulted and killed.
The Instances seen images and movies of girls’s our bodies that bore indicators suggestive of sexual assault and mutilation. The Instances 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. Consultants have stated that it’s not uncommon for such proof to be minimal in circumstances of wartime sexual violence.
Ladies’s advocacy teams in Israel have denounced the pushback, saying that the quite a few and detailed allegations that Israeli girls had been brutally attacked that day have been held to totally different requirements than allegations of girls elsewhere who claimed to have been victimized.
Demonstrators in Israel, offended 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 stated in a press release 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’ “faith, values and tradition” forbid such acts, and that, as Muslims, they’re “honor-bound to respect and shield all girls.” The group has stated 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 stated she is going to share some preliminary findings and that extra info will likely be included in her workplace’s annual report on sexual violence in conflict.
Orit Sulitzeanu, the chief director of the Affiliation of Rape Disaster Facilities in Israel, stated in a information launch that the report was submitted to choice makers on the U.N. “Silence is now not an choice,” she stated. “We count on worldwide organizations to take a transparent stance; we can’t stand on the sidelines.”
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