A comprehensive report on the sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists will be published on Tuesday, 21 months after the October 7 massacre. According to the Sunday Times, the report prepared by the Dinah Project, dedicated to deal with the world's silence about the sexual atrocities that day, found they were "widespread and systematic" and included rape, and gang rape in at least six locations along the Israel-Gaza border.
This report contains hard-to-read descriptions of sexual violence.
The Times said the report was based on first-hand testimony from 15 of the returned hostages from Gaza (only one of whom has spoken previously) and a survivor of attempted rape at the Nova music festival, as well as interviews with 17 people who saw or heard the attacks and with therapists working with traumatized survivors.
The purpose of the report was “to counter denial, misinformation and global silence” in what it says is “one of the most under-reported dimensions of the attacks” and “to set the historical record straight: Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”, according to the Times.
It was authored by Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University, Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, expert on international law and former chief military prosecutor of the Israeli army, and Nava Ben-Or, a retired judge, former deputy state attorney and expert in the field of sexual abuse of children, and funded in part by the British Police.
“Clear patterns emerged in how the sexual violence was perpetrated,” the report states, “including victims found partially or fully naked with their hands tied, often to trees or poles; evidence of gang rapes followed by execution; and genital mutilation.”
The report also said that sexual violence continued in captivity. "Many returnees reported forced nudity, physical and verbal sexual harassment, sexual assaults and threats of forced marriage,” the report adds.
The authors of the report said it was written after the inadequate response of international organizations such as UN Women to the reported sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists. "We feel let down by other women around the world, Halperin-Kaddari said. "If the standard is to believe survivors and witnesses, there is no excuse to keep quiet. Yet in this case, a different standard was employed and the victims were lost in politicization. The fact that so many kept silent or even denied what happened was devastating and a grave failure of international human rights.”
Amit Soussana speaking to the UN
In the report are the testimonies of 15 former hostages who reported sexual violence during their captivity. Only one, Amit Soussana, had spoken publicly about her ordeal.
Sexual violence does not always have to mean rape," Halperin-Kaddari said. It can be forced nudity, forcing the captives to undress and shower in front of their captors or trying to force marriage on them."
The report will include the first-time testimony from a survivor of the atrocities at the Nova festival who was able to tell her story only now, 17 months after the fact. "We know there are more victims who are still too traumatized to speak," Halperin-Kaddari said adding that the report has testimonies of 15 acts of atrocities including gang rapes reported by two brothers who hid in bushes during the massacre and the testimony of one woman who hid during the massacre and heard the screams of the women being raped and murdered.
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The report also includes testimony from 27 rescue workers from dozens of locations, forensic evidence and video and photographic evidence.
“We found patterns of evidence,” Zagagi-Pinhas told the Times. “Women found dead, naked and mutilated — with gunshots in their genitalia — and tied to trees. The fact that the same things happened in three to six locations can’t be a coincidence, but proof this was premeditated,” she said, adding that “dozens” of bodies of young women were stripped and some of those were tied to trees or poles.
The report calls for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to send a fact-finding mission in the light of the testimonies and to include Hamas in the blacklist in the UN’s annual report of those designated for using sexual violence as a weapon of war.