Newly launched interviews and documentation additional bolster proof that Hamas systematically used sexual violence as a weapon of conflict throughout its Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack, in accordance with a report by a gaggle of Israeli gender and legislation specialists unveiled Tuesday.
The report, titled “A Quest for Justice,” was revealed by the Dinah Mission, a authorized analysis initiative led by Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, ladies’s rights activist and legislation professor at of Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan College; Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, a lawyer and the previous chief army prosecutor on the Israel Protection Forces; and Nava Ben-Or, a former decide and deputy legal professional basic.
Partly funded by the British authorities and Jewish nonprofit organizations, the report incorporates beforehand unheard accounts from 15 returned hostages from Gaza, together with testimony from a rape survivor from the Nova music pageant, one in all not less than six totally different areas the place Hamas carried out its assaults.
It additionally contains eyewitness testimony from not less than 17 totally different incidents of sexual assault, in addition to accounts from first responders, forensic proof, and audio and visible documentation.
The difficulty of sexual assault and rape during the Oct. 7 attacks is extremely emotive and charged, with some in Israel accusing United Nations observers of betraying survivors by downplaying the problem. In the meantime, some worldwide observers, together with a United Nations official appointed to analyze, say that whereas there may be evidence of cases of rape and sexual assault, this proof doesn’t level to these incidents having been systematic or directed by militant leaders.
Hamas has denied that its militants dedicated sexual crimes on Oct. 7, 2023.
The report states that clear patterns emerged of sexual violence being perpetrated, together with victims who had been discovered “partially or absolutely bare with their arms tied, typically to constructions like timber or poles; proof of gang rapes adopted by execution; genital mutilation; and public humiliation.” The main points add to and corroborate past reporting on sexual violence that happened through the assaults.
The sexual violence “continued in captivity, with many returnees reporting compelled nudity, bodily and verbal sexual harassment, sexual assaults and threats of compelled marriage,” the report provides.
The victims additionally embody two returned male hostages who had been launched in January and February after being held captive for about 500 days, the place they had been subjected to “sexual humiliation, which included compelled nudity and bodily abuse when bare,” in accordance with the report.
In mild of the testimonies, the report goals to have the sexual violence acknowledged as crimes in opposition to humanity and to carry the perpetrators accountable.
Notably, it calls on the U.N. to ship a fact-finding mission and blacklist Hamas as a gaggle. “We therefore name upon the U.N. Secretary-Basic to blacklist Hamas as a company answerable for the tactical use of sexual violence as a weapon of conflict,” it states.
Reem Alsalem, the U.N. Particular Rapporteur on violence in opposition to ladies and ladies, stated in an announcement that she and fellow rapporteurs and specialists emphasised that reviews of such violence wanted to be independently verified and investigated and perpetrators be held accountable.
She added that the U.N. particular fee appointed to analyze “discovered patterns indicative of sexual violence in opposition to Israeli ladies at totally different areas. The Fee was additionally unable to independently confirm particular allegations of sexual and gender-based violence on account of Israel’s obstruction of its investigations.”
“It’s my understanding that neither the Fee nor some other impartial human rights mechanism established that sexual or gender-based violence was dedicated in opposition to Israelis on or because the seventh of October as a scientific instrument of conflict or as a instrument of genocide,” Alsalem wrote within the assertion.
The Dinah Mission report’s findings observe beforehand revealed reviews by the U.N. and the Worldwide Felony Courtroom on sexual violence and gang rape through the assault.
In March 2024, a report compiled by Pramila Patten, the U.N. Particular Consultant on sexual violence in battle, said that it had discovered “affordable grounds” to consider some victims of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 were raped and sexually assaulted.
There was “clear and convincing” info that a few of these taken captive had been subjected to sexual violence, the U.N. staff of specialists said in their report, together with rape and sexualized torture — violence it stated “could also be ongoing.”
In December 2023, NBC Information revealed a separate report which reviewed proof suggesting that dozens of Israeli ladies had been raped, sexually abused or mutilated through the Oct. 7 assault, the place greater than 1,200 individuals had been killed in Israel.
Since then, Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza has killed greater than 56,000 individuals and critically injured 1000’s extra, in accordance with well being officers within the enclave.
The Dinah Mission’s report additionally comes after a U.N.-backed physique, the Human Rights Council, launched an in depth report in March this 12 months that accused Israel of “the systematic use of sexual, reproductive and different gender-based violence” in the Gaza Strip.
The report by the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory discovered that the widespread destruction of Gaza, the usage of heavy explosives in civilian areas, and Israeli assaults on hospitals and well being services had led to “disproportionate violence in opposition to ladies and kids.”
Whereas Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t handle the newest report’s findings, he referred to as the group an “anti-Israel circus.”
