Thirteen women and two men who survived the captive of Hamas said they suffered or witnessed sexual violence while hostage in Gaza, according to a new report by a group of Israeli researchers known as the Dinah project.
Project experts Dinah – all women – gathered first -hand testimonials from 15 hostages that returned, a survivor of an attempted rape during terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, 17 ocular and hearing witnesses, and 27 rescuers who attended the scenes of the attacks.
These testimonials, along with forensic reports, photographs and videos of the attacks, led the report to conclude that Hamas used sexual, systematic and “tactical” sexual violence as a “weapon of war.”
The report, published on Tuesday (8), describes some of the survivors’ experiences.
A hostage was beaten and sexually abused under the aim of a gun while in captivity, according to the report.
She said she was arrested by an ankle iron current for three weeks and was repeatedly questioned about her period of her menstrual cycle.
The report details that many of the 15 former reprints have been threatened with rape in the form of forced marriage.
Almost all reported verbal sexual harassment and some physical sexual harassment, including unwanted touches in private parts, according to the report.
In the past, Israel accused international organizations, including the UN and its agencies, of ignoring widespread sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas and other militant groups during the October 7 attacks.
The Dinah project is an Israeli group created after the attacks to
Composed of law and gender experts, the project is led by jurist Ruth Halperin-Kaddari and Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, former military chief of the defense forces of Israel, and operates with the support of Centro Ruth and Emanuel Rackman for the advancement of women at Bar-Ilan University.
UN’s first official recognition of the use of sexual violence
Then, after a mission to Israel, the UN special representative about conflict sexual violence, Pramila Patten, published a report concluding that there were reasonable reasons to believe that conflict -related sexual violence occurred in various places, and that
Hamas denied in the past that their fighters committed sexual violence, stating in a statement in December that these were “unfounded lies and allegations.”
The scale of the atrocities committed on attacks day left rescuers and investigators overloaded.
According to Jewish customs, bodies should be buried as soon as possible after death, so the focus of rescuers, many of whom were orthodox Jewish volunteers, was in the recovery of remains rather than investigation.
In many cases, the authorities did not have the opportunity to collect enough forensic evidence, as they were present at the scene while the attacks were still underway.
This meant that there were often no detailed records or photographs of the scenes of immediately later crimes. Many of the victims of sexual violence were murdered by their aggressors, which meant that there were almost no first -hand testimonials, according to the report.
As some hostages have been released and more time has passed, allowing victims to process their experiences, the researchers were able to collect first -hander evidence.
Dinah project researchers asked sexual violence perpetrated during attacks to be recognized as crimes against humanity and said perpetrators should be held responsible and receive international conviction.
