Sexual violence was a ‘deliberate strategy’ and key to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, a report found.
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WARNING: This article contains sexual harassment information. It may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone who has.
Sexual violence was systematic, widespread and central to the Hamas-led attack on October 7 and its aftermath, a new report by an Israeli nonprofit found.
The report, titled “It’s No Longer Relevant,” was published Tuesday by the Civil Commission, an independent group that researched and documented Hamas’ gender-based violence after its 2023 invasion of Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
The report details a two-year investigation that used more than 400 pieces of evidence and nearly 2,000 hours of documented analysis into 13 patterns of violence, including gang rape, sexual assault and forced nudity.
“What we found shows that it was a deliberate strategy in a wide-scale terrorist attack on victims and hostages,” said Cochav Elkayam-Levy, founder and chairman of the commission and lead author of the report.
WARNING: Video contains graphic images | A UN mission to Israel says it has found ‘reasonable grounds’ to support allegations that Hamas committed sexual violence during the October 7 attack, and that such violence is still ongoing.
Both sides are accused of using sexual violence
Sexual violence has become highly politicized since the Gaza war began, with each side trying to discredit the other’s allegations.
Israel has pointed to events during the October 7 attack and the handling of the hostages to highlight what it says is Hamas brutality and to justify its wartime policy of preventing any repeated threats from Gaza. The Israeli government has accused the international community of ignoring or downplaying evidence of sexual violence, accusing it of bias against Israel.
The report’s findings could not be independently verified by the Associated Press, and critics have challenged some of Elkayam-Levy’s previous research. A number of prominent people, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Rahm Emanuel and Facebook pioneer Sheryl Sandberg, have endorsed his work.
The United Nations says it has found “reasonable grounds” to believe that Hamas terrorists committed rape and other sexual violence during their atrocities. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said that he has reason to believe that three important leaders of Hamas are guilty of “rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity.”
Human rights groups and Palestinians who were rounded up by Israel after the attack also shared detailed evidence of sexual violence and torture in Israeli prisons.
In March, Israel dropped charges against five soldiers accused of beating and raping a Palestinian prisoner in an assault caught on camera. Prominent politicians, who have been fiercely opposed to the charges, applauded the decision to drop the charges, while human rights groups said it showed Israel’s lack of commitment to investigating abuses.
The Israeli government and Hamas did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment.
The commission – made up of a team of researchers, lawyers and trauma experts – collected digital materials, conducted interviews and recorded evidence. It also cross-references information using independent data sources, it said.
The report said that Hamas and its collaborators were particularly focused on women and hostages, but children were also subjected to violence and abuse.
In one example, it said two returning young abductees were forced to perform “sexual acts on each other,” such as removing their clothes while their captors touched their private parts.
It said sexual abuse was used to increase pain and suffering, with survivors enduring burning, mutilation and forced insertions. Sometimes the victims were found with their hands and feet tied or bound. The armed groups also recorded acts of torture and killing and distributed the images on social media, the report said.
Israeli lawmakers passed a bill on May 11 that would allow the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of participating in the Oct. 7, 2023, which killed more than 1,200 people. Another 250 people were also abducted and kidnapped by the terrorist group Hamas that day. Human rights watchdogs say the bill is cause for concern as it will subject Palestinians to completely different laws under the special court compared to what would be seen in court.
The report chronicled the attacks in many places, including the Nova Music festival, where hundreds were killed and others kidnapped. The Associated Press previously obtained evidence that sexual assault was part of the rampant violence in Hamas on October 7, including an eyewitness account of a man at the festival who said he heard a woman screaming for help and yelling, “They’re raping me, they’re raping me!”
The captors were also sexually assaulted and tortured, some for months at a time, according to the report.
Some freed hostages have spoken of being sexually abused while in custody. In an interview with the Israeli media, Romi Gonen said that she was repeatedly abused and tortured by three men.
Another hostage, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, told the New York Times that he was sexually assaulted by one of his captors and threatened with death if he said anything.
If you are in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911. For support in your area, you can check crisis lines and local services by using Completes the database of the Canadian Sexual Violence Association. .
