EDITOR’S NOTE: This report comprises details of sexual assault and violence.
Hamas militants and their allies raped, assaulted and sexually tortured their victims during and after the October 7, 2023 terror attack on southern Israel “to maximize pain and suffering,” a landmark new report has concluded.
Shared first with NCS, the report presents probably the most complete physique of proof but of sexual and gender-based violence towards ladies, males and youngsters, which it describes as “systematic, widespread, and integral to” the assault.
“The most important finding is the fact that the sexual violence on October 7 and against hostages in captivity has been a calculated strategy by Hamas,” lead creator and human rights skilled Cochav Elkayam-Levy advised NCS.
The report consists of firsthand testimonies from greater than 10 survivors who endured excessive sexual violence and sexual abuse during the attack, their abduction or whereas held in captivity in Gaza.
Some of them, together with former hostages Romi Gonen, Rom Braslavski, Arbel Yehud, Amit Soussana, Ilana Gritzewsky and others, have spoken publicly about their ordeal. Other victims have solely shared their experiences confidentially with specialists, investigators and medical employees.
But the report additionally consists of beforehand unknown allegations, together with a case of two minors who, whereas held hostage in Gaza, say they had been sexually abused and pressured by their captors to carry out sexual acts on one another.
Some of those details solely emerged after a number of the earlier experiences had been printed, together with after the discharge of hostages from Gaza. Some got here from testimonies offered on to the researchers, whereas others had been gathered in quite a few conferences with medical specialists, legal professionals representing a number of the victims, and others.
In one notably harrowing instance, the report details three separate incidents of rape on the website of the Nova Music Festival close to the Gaza perimeter, citing a survivor who was hiding within the rapid neighborhood of the attack.
“I heard one rape where they were passing her around. She was probably injured, judging by her screams—screams you have never heard anywhere,” the survivor is quoted as saying. Their account is corroborated by one other survivor, in keeping with the report, who additionally spoke about listening to the rapes, in addition to others who later noticed the our bodies of the victims, their garments torn, legs unfold and intimate areas mutilated.
At least six different incidents of individuals straight witnessing rapes and gang rapes are outlined within the report, with the entire witnesses describing victims being shot lifeless. In one case, a witness mentioned she noticed a younger lady being raped by a number of males, mutilated and shot lifeless.
Elkayam-Levy mentioned the aim of the report – and a digital archive that comprises all of the proof the crew collected – is ensuring that the struggling endured by the victims couldn’t be “denied, erased, or forgotten.” Like different archives of this type, the fabric won’t be accessible to the general public for a set time period to guard the privateness of the victims. NCS has not been capable of confirm the entire contents of the archive, but it surely has seen lots of the visible supplies included in it.
The report was publicly endorsed by various high-profile specialists and campaigners, together with Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton.
The crew has spent greater than two years painstakingly gathering, reviewing and cataloguing proof from the attack. They say they carried out lots of of interviews and conferences with survivors, first responders, forensic examiners and medical specialists, and spent some 1,800 hours analyzing greater than 10,000 images and video segments from the attack, together with hours of ugly materials recorded by the perpetrators.
The Civil Commission, which describes itself as an impartial non-governmental group, was arrange by Elkayam-Levy with a view to doc and protect proof from the attack. Its report has recognized what the authors say is “clear and convincing evidence” of “patterns” of sexual and gender-based abuse that occurred on a number of events throughout a number of websites.
They say that the repeated nature of the violence – together with sexual torture, killings following sexual violence, pressured nudity, restraint of victims, threats of pressured marriage, and filming and disseminating imagery of sexual violence – signifies this was an integral a part of the attack and its aftermath, dedicated towards each ladies and males.
The report says that lots of the victims’ our bodies had been mutilated on October 7, with the attackers usually concentrating on ladies’s faces and intimate areas. The researchers reviewed images of lots of the our bodies and interviewed forensic specialists in addition to individuals who labored on identifications on the IDF Shura base the place many of the our bodies had been introduced. They mentioned dozens had been shot or burnt within the chest and groin areas, mutilation that was usually inflicted on them after they had been lifeless.
Elkayam-Levy mentioned she believed this was a deliberate a part of the attack.
“Sexual violence is meant to torture, humiliate. They mutilated (the victims’) intimate organs, they burned their genital areas, creating such a pain and suffering that will be remembered for generations to come,” she mentioned.
“The victim is a symbol of a nation. It’s the collective impact of it, the collective trauma that it creates, the collective suffering.”
The problem of sexual and gender violence on October 7 grew to become closely politicized in its aftermath, partly as a result of some accounts of horrific violence shared by officers instantly after the attack had been later discovered to be false.
To counter potential deniers, Elkayam-Levy mentioned every bit of proof included within the report had been rigorously cross-referenced and fact-checked.
Each case cited has been corroborated by witnesses, together with first responders who attended the scene. She mentioned the crew behind the report – comprising some 25 specialists and contributors – had additionally labored with a gaggle of researchers who geolocated images and movies from the scene, pinpointing the situation of every sufferer and cross-referencing it with different proof.
The authors say they determined to not rely on any data obtained by state interrogations – a regular observe in compiling such experiences, aimed toward preserving the independence of the work. Hamas has repeatedly denied sexual and gender-based violence happened during the assaults or towards these held captive.
The denials continued regardless of the United Nations’ particular consultant on sexual violence in battle, Pramila Patten, concluding after a fact-finding mission that there have been “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred.” Patten mentioned she was not capable of meet any survivors during her go to, however her crew visited the websites of the assaults and interviewed dozens of witnesses and officers.
The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, an impartial group of Israeli researchers often known as the Dinah Project, and varied nationwide and worldwide media investigations all additionally concluded that rape and sexual abuse had been a part of the attack. The new report goes additional, calling the violence systematic and calculated.
Hamas has beforehand denied that its militants dedicated rape during the October 7 attack.
The International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for 3 Hamas leaders over their alleged duty for battle crimes, together with rape and different types of sexual violence. However, all three had been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, so the courtroom closed the proceedings.
Some Israeli officers criticized worldwide our bodies for not paying sufficient consideration to the problem of sexual and gender-based violence, arguing this was right down to antisemitism.
Meanwhile, a few of Israel’s critics denied it happened and accused Israel of utilizing the allegations as an excuse for its brutal battle in Gaza. More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza because the battle started two and a half years in the past, in keeping with the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Those who questioned the allegations homed in on the absence of first-hand testimonies from victims instantly after the assaults. Israeli authorities say it’s because a lot of them had been murdered on October 7.
It was solely when forensic specialists examined their our bodies and checked out images and movies from the attack, seeing clear indicators of sexual violence, that researchers had been capable of piece collectively what occurred.
Another issue was that within the rapid aftermath of the preliminary attack – with preventing nonetheless raging within the space – some emergency crews broke legislation enforcement protocol, failing to gather forensic proof and study victims on the scene. There had been virtually no information or images of the crime scenes as they had been discovered.
Within days of the assaults, whereas emergency employees had been nonetheless recovering the our bodies, Israeli authorities introduced journalists, together with NCS, to a number of the websites. Access was almost limitless, with dozens of individuals allowed to stroll by the crime scenes in personal properties.
When NCS has beforehand requested about proof gathering, Israeli authorities and emergency responders pointed to the safety constraints of working inside an lively fight zone in addition to the necessity to establish and bury the victims.
This isn’t uncommon in instances of sexual violence, Elkayam-Levy mentioned. What was uncommon was the weaponization of the dearth of forensic proof to discredit the allegations.
“Anyone who has ever represented victims of sexual violence knows that questioning and denials come almost immediately. But what pains me the most was actually not the hesitation by the public, it was the experts who said, ‘Show me the evidence,’” Elkayam-Levy mentioned.
“I don’t remember ever in my 20 years of experience that I heard a feminist scholar come and say, show me the evidence to a victim of sexual violence,” she added.
Some of the primary responders had been volunteers with no formal coaching on easy methods to deal with proof. Many had been overwhelmed and traumatized, and some gave accounts of issues they’d seen that later turned out to be false – however not earlier than they had been extensively circulated within the media, by Israeli officers and, in a single case, by Elkayam-Levy herself.
She was criticized publicly by some colleagues as effectively nameless authorities officers who had been quoted in Israeli and worldwide media questioning her motives.
These incidents had been later utilized by some critics to discredit different claims, even when proof was clear and corroborated by a number of sources.
Elkayam-Levy rapidly grew to become probably the most vocal advocates for the victims. She was awarded the 2024 Israel Prize, extensively thought-about to be the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Like many advocates for victims of sexual violence, Elkayam-Levy has obtained threats, together with loss of life threats, associated to her work – work which she believes is value it.
“These men and women, victims of sexual violence, have been silenced in the worst way and cruelest way possible. Hopefully what we did is to put an end to this.”