Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli women ‘in all arenas’ where the October 7 massacre took place.
Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli women “in all arenas” where the October 7 massacre took place, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel revealed in a recent report. The ARCCI is an “umbrella organization for the nine regional Rape Crisis Centers (RCCs)” in Israel, its website says, and the organization provides support for victims of sexual abuse.
The report details Hamas’s onslaught at the Nova music festival at which terrorists gang-raped, mutilated, and beat women. When bodies arrived at morgues from the festival, some were reportedly partially clothed or unclothed and were still bleeding from their pelvic areas.
Kibbutzim in the south, where Hamas broke into homes and murdered whole families, were the site of horrific sexual assaults. Hamas slaughtered around 10 percent of the population in Kibbutz Be’eri and raped women and girls in their bedrooms, while some were “partially dressed in their pajamas,” the ARCCI reported based on several testimonies. First responders found bodies that were stripped of underwear, bodies with signs of semen on them, and a body with a knife inserted into its genitals. Similarly in Re’im and Kfar Aza, bodies were found with clear signs of sexual assault.
Hamas also attacked female soldiers on Israel Defense Forces bases during October 7. Some murdered female soldiers were bleeding from their pelvic areas, a first responser reported to ARCCI, and one officer said that she saw “at least ten bodies of female soldiers with clear signs of sexual violence.” Hamas terrorists also filmed themselves shooting two female soldiers in the genitals, according to footage the IDF retrieved and footage that has since been shown to the New York Times.
Attacks were systemic and “sadistic,” the ARCCI concluded. Women were raped so brutally that their pelvic bones fractured, rape was committed by several participants sometimes “in the presence of excited crowds,” and sexual assault was carried out on women who appeared to be dead already. Hamas forced some families in kibbutzim to witness the rape or sexual assault of their own family members, in their own homes, ARCCI reported. In one house, the IDF found the body of a mother whose hands were bound and who appeared to have struggled before her murder. In the room next to her, her daughter was found dead with her pants and underwear rolled down. In another case, a couple — a man and a woman — were found bound together, naked. The woman appeared to have been raped. In yet another case, responders found the bodies of two women bound to a bed. One was sexually assaulted and found “with a knife in her genitals.”
Hamas terrorists would sometimes brutalize women in an “intentional attempt to destroy the sexual organs,” the ARCCI report says. Witnesses and responders testified that Hamas cut off women’s breasts, cut and damaged their organs, and even “inserted iron rods into their sexual organs,” according to Rami Davidian, an Israeli farmer who witnessed attacks. Terrorists reportedly even inserted into women’s genitals objects such as nails, grenades, and knives. One responder testified that he found “a woman’s body stabbed in the genitalia with a serrated knife that was used to remove the woman’s internal organs, leaving them between her legs.”
Although Hamas’s sexual violence was mostly directed at women, some Israeli men were reportedly found with their genitals cut off or shot.
The ARCCI sent the report to the United Nations, Israeli media reported, so that there would be “no room for denial or disregard” among U.N. members of Hamas’s systemic use of sexual violence. UN Women for weeks denied or refused to condemn Hamas’s use of sexual violence, even though video evidence filmed by Hamas immediately proved that Hamas assaulted women.
The U.N. recently opened an investigation into unverified reports of the Israeli military sexually assaulting women in Gaza. Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said that the U.S. has seen the allegations that the U.N. is investigating but cannot “independently confirm the reports.” Miller confirmed in early December, however, that U.S. intelligence had “no reason at all to doubt” reports that Hamas committed rape and sexual violence.