EPAHamas used sexual violence as “a part of a deliberate genocidal technique” through the 7 October 2023 assault on Israel, an all-women group of Israeli authorized and gender specialists allege in a brand new report calling for justice.
The Dinah Venture says the report relies on a evaluation of proof together with first-hand testimony from a survivor of an tried rape and 15 former hostages held in Gaza, in addition to accounts from witnesses to sexual assaults.
It lays out what the group describes as “a authorized blueprint for prosecuting these crimes, even when direct attribution to particular person perpetrators is inconceivable”.
Hamas has denied its forces dedicated sexual violence in opposition to girls or mistreated feminine hostages.
Nonetheless, a UN mission concluded in March 2024 that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attack in multiple locations, together with rape and gang rape, and that there was “convincing data” that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence, together with rape and sexualised torture.
And earlier than they have been assassinated by Israel, three top Hamas leaders were also accused by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor of the crimes against humanity of rape and other forms of sexual violence, along with homicide, extermination and torture.
On 7 October, a whole lot of members of Hamas and allied Palestinian armed teams attacked southern Israel, the place they killed about 1,200 folks and took 251 others hostage.
Israel responded by launching a army marketing campaign in Gaza, throughout which greater than 57,500 folks have been killed, based on the territory’s Hamas-run well being ministry.
Warning: Incorporates graphic descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The Dinah Venture was launched after 7 October to pursue justice for victims of sexual violence. It was based by authorized scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddar, lawyer and former chief army prosecutor Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, and former choose and deputy legal professional basic Nava Ben-Or.
It says that the report, which was published on Tuesday, “establishes that Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon, as a part of a genocidal scheme and with the aim of terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society”.
It additionally “creates a pathway to justice for victims of the 7 October assault and probably for victims in different battle zones”, based on the group.
The authors say they reviewed a big quantity of sources, starting from social media posts to recorded testimony, in addition to forensic proof and visible and audio proof.
The report – which doesn’t determine the victims however cites stories that do title a few of them – says a feminine survivor of the assault on the Nova music pageant on 7 October advised members of the Dinah Venture that she was subjected to an tried rape and sexual assault.
In accordance with the report, one of many 15 former hostages stated she was compelled to carry out a sexual act, which was preceded by sexual abuse and verbal and bodily sexual harassment. She additionally stated she endured compelled nudity – an expertise which was reported by six different hostages as nicely.
Virtually all the hostages reported verbal and a few bodily harassment, together with “undesirable bodily contact in non-public elements”, the report says, whereas six stated additionally they confronted threats of compelled marriage.
Two males among the many hostages stated they have been subjected to compelled nudity and bodily abuse when bare, with one additionally recounting the shaving of all his physique hair, based on the report.
The Dinah Venture says the accounts from individuals who noticed or heard incidents of sexual violence confirmed that such crimes have been “widespread and systematic” on 7 October.
In accordance with the report, 5 witnesses reported a minimum of 4 separate instances of gang rape; seven reported a minimum of eight different separate instances of rape or extreme sexual assaults, a few of them in captivity; 5 reported a minimum of three separate instances of sexual assaults, some in captivity; and three reported three separate instances of mutilation.
9 of these instances associated to the Nova music pageant, two to the Nahal Oz army base, one to the Route 232 street, and 4 to incidents occurring in captivity in Gaza, the report says.
Twenty-seven first responders in the meantime described dozens of instances which confirmed “clear indicators of sexual violence throughout six areas”, the report says – the Nova pageant, Route 232, and the kibbutzim of Be’eri, Alumim, Nahal Oz and Re’im.
The report additionally says that “most victims have been completely silenced”, as a result of they have been both killed on 7 October or left too traumatised to speak.
In response, the authors present what they describe because the “first world authorized blueprint explaining learn how to prosecute sexual violence as a weapon of struggle – even when proof is messy, survivors are gone, and particular person perpetrators cannot be tied to particular person acts”.
That features an evidentiary framework to classify data primarily based on its proximity to incidents and its evidentiary worth, and a authorized framework for establishing prison duty for atrocities dedicated throughout mass assaults, even when a person didn’t personally commit every particular act or weren’t conscious of its fee by another person.
The report concludes by saying that justice is “important not just for particular person victims however for affirming broader rules: that sexual violence in battle is a severe violation of worldwide legislation, that perpetrators might be held accountable, and that the worldwide neighborhood is not going to enable such crimes to be dedicated with impunity”.
