Israel's first lady Michal Herzog wrote about Hamas' mass rapes during their heinous terror attack on October 7 and the subsequent silence by women's organizations in an article in Newsweek published on Wednesday.
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In her piece, Herzog cites the categorization of violence against women as a war crime in 1990's and the glaring hypocrisy the world shows when it ignores the victims' cries. She notes that the rapidly approaching November 25 is the day designated by the United Nations as International Day for the Prevention of Violence against Women and claims that all international organizations let women down with their silence on the war crime perpetrated in Israel.
"It is not that condemnations of gender-based violence by Hamas have been weak or insufficient – there have been none at all. Statement after statement by organizations like UN Women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have failed to condemn these crimes. They failed us, and all women, at this critical moment," Herzog wrote.
At the President's Residence in Jerusalem, the presidential couple is preparing for November 25. Each year, they host victims, civil-society leaders, activists and scholars who stand up for women's rights and safety. This year will be dedicated to October 7, when thousands of Hamas terrorists massacred Israeli families, burnt children and the elderly, and kidnapped hostages, in addition to raping women. This had a deep impact on Michal Herzog's understanding of the cruelty of gender-based sexual violence — and her faith in the international organizations that claim to care about women.
She writes that the October 7 attack "deeply impacted our visceral understanding of the cruelty of gender-based sexual violence — and our faith in the international organizations that claim to care about women."
Israel' first lady does not place any side in the conflict in higher regard. "As a woman and a mother, my heart goes out to women and children in Gaza suffering the consequences of the war started by Hamas. I believe they deserve aid and support. But this does not mean the erasure of the atrocities committed by Palestinian terrorists on October 7. The silence of international human rights organizations, and the unwillingness to believe Israeli women in the face of overwhelming evidence has been devastating."
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Families of abducted Israelis protest for the return of their loved ones
(Photo: Amit Shabi)
Herzog adds that thousands of women who could have suffered the same fate of rape, murder and mutilation manages to get away. She recounts horrific testimonies of witnesses from the Nova music festival, where the terrorists gang-raped women, and some were even taken hostage to Gaza where they were paraded without clothes or after they were repeatedly sexually assaulted.
Herzog also blames the international organizations for normalizing the prolonged crime of leaving 240 hostages held in Gaza which include many women and girls. "Only when they are released will we know what they have endured," she writes.
"To mark this year's International Day for the Prevention of Violence against Women, Israeli women – Jews, Muslims, Christians, and Druze – will gather at the President's Residence in Jerusalem. They will meet in the lingering shock of the violation of our rights, and with the profound sense that all of us who believe in those rights have been betrayed," Herzog writes.
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Michal Herzog with the families of the abductees
(Photo: Israel's President Residence)
Yet Herzog vows to persist in presenting the truth to the world and to every human rights organization. She believes that we owe it not only to our own victims, but to all women who will face these crimes in the future and who must know that they are not alone.