Published on February 21, the report by an Israeli NGO shows that the Hamas attacks committed in Israel on October 7 gave rise to systematic and premeditated sexual violence.

This document from the Association of Rape Support Centers in Israel (ARCCI), which oversees centers combating sexual violence across the country, describes these abuses as an integral part of the October 7 attacks.

Israeli officials have accused Hamas of increasing sexual assaults there, including rape and genital mutilation, which the Palestinian movement has always denied.

The lack of direct and public accounts from survivors and the absence of forensic expertise has not yet made it possible to draw a clear picture of these abuses and their scale.

But the ARCCI report highlights in this regard the "similarities" in all the attacks - against the Tribe of Nova music festival, kibbutzim, military bases and on the people who were taken hostage.

Sexual violence was perpetrated there "systematically and deliberately against Israeli civilians", notes the NGO which is based on testimonies and interviews with witnesses (but not victims), sometimes reported in the media.

Read alsoOctober 7 attack: evidence of sex crimes perpetrated by Hamas accumulates in Israel

“Rapes, many of them in meetings”

Eyewitness accounts of sexual violence proliferated in the media after October 7, especially from survivors of the Tribe of Nova festival where some 3,000 people celebrated less than 10 km from Gaza.

Among them, 364 lost their lives.

The ARCCI report mentions in particular "rapes, many of them in meetings, at gunpoint".

He quotes a survivor of the Nova festival attack who describes "an apocalypse of corpses, of naked girls, sometimes on the upper body, sometimes on the bottom".

In Kibbutz Beeri, where 90 residents were killed, rescuers said they found "bodies showing signs of sexual attacks."

Sexual assaults were also recorded at the military bases attacked, the report added.

He cites in particular a soldier present in one of these bases who said he saw at least ten bodies of female soldiers clearly showing traces of sexual violence.

Sexual assaults on hostages

Hostages released since also spoke of sexual assault, the report adds.

Like Chen and Agam Goldstein, who after 51 days of detention, said they encountered “at least three female hostages who were sexually assaulted during their captivity”.

The report, which includes sometimes gruesome descriptions, also mentions mutilations of victims, including men.

In the media, witnesses to the Hamas attack reported rape, sexual violence and genital mutilation, sometimes in front of family members, neighbors or relatives of the victim.

A difficult investigation

These accusations are the subject of complex investigations in Israel, made difficult by the absence of a post-mortem examination in the chaos of the days following the attack, and while Jewish religious tradition recommends rapid burial of the deceased. .

Read alsoIn Israel, the difficult investigation into Hamas sex crimes

The UN special representative in charge of sexual violence in times of conflict, Pramila Patten, visited Israel at the end of January.

She called on women victims of alleged sex crimes on October 7 to “break the silence” and tell their stories about what they had suffered.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog then stressed the importance of his visit, hoping that it would help bring the truth to light. 

According to international law, the use of sexual violence is considered a war crime.

Thank you UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, for visiting Israel with the aim of studying closely the horrific, systematic, and extensive sexual and… pic.twitter.com/BGIRfUzWGX

— יצחק הרצוג Isaac Herzog (@Isaac_Herzog) January 29, 2024

At the beginning of December, Unicef ​​condemned the "sexual violence" committed against Israeli women on October 7, a condemnation that Israel considered late and insufficient because it did not mention, according to it, their perpetrators, namely the armed men of Hamas.

With AFP

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