New report details widespread and systematic sexual violence by Hamas on Oct 7

Sexual violence was “widespread and systematic” during the October 7th Hamas attacks in southern Israel with rape and gang rape occurring in at least six different locations, a new report has established.

A report by the Dinah Project also concluded the during the 2023 atrocity “clear patterns emerged in how the sexual violence was perpetrated, including victims found partially or fully naked with their hands tied, often to trees or poles; evidence of gang rapes followed by execution; and genital mutilation.”

Based on testimonies from 15 of the returned hostages from Gaza, only one of whom had previously spoken, a survivor of an attempted rape at the Nova festival, and on interviews with 17 other witnesses to the attacks, the report was compiled by Israeli legal experts, and partly funded by the British government.

Published in full on Tuesday it is aimed at challenging “denial, misinformation and global silence” of  “one of the most under-reported dimensions of the attacks.”

Ultimately, the report’s authors say it will be an attempt“to set the historical record straight: Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.

The report has been put together by Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women, at Bar-Ilan University, who worked with Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, a former chief military prosecutor of the Israeli army, and Nava Ben-Or, a retired judge, former deputy state attorney and expert in the field of sexual abuse of children.

Halperin-Kaddari told The Times that the evidence within the report stands as “a blueprint for how to secure justice in cases of mass atrocities when many of the victims are dead and it is impossible to point at a specific perpetrator”.

The report also adds: “Sexual violence continued in captivity, with many returnees reporting forced nudity, physical and verbal sexual harassment, sexual assaults and threats of forced marriage.”

It details how the attacks took place at the Nova music festival, Route 232, the military base at Nahal Oz, and three kibbutzim: Re’im, Nir Oz and Kfar Aza.

The report calls for the UN secretary-general to send a fact-finding mission in the light of the testimonies and to include Hamas in the blacklist in the UN’s annual report of those designated for using sexual violence as a weapon of war.

“Sexual violence need not mean rape – also forced nudity, forcing some of the hostages to strip and shower while being watched or trying to force them into marriage,” said Zagagi-Pinhas, the former chief prosecutor for the military, in the report.