Hostages launched from Gaza element sexual violence as Israeli report concludes Hamas used it as ‘weapon of struggle’ on October 7

CNN
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13 girls and two males who survived captivity by Hamas stated they skilled or witnessed sexual violence whereas held hostage in Gaza, in line with a new report by a bunch of Israeli researchers referred to as the Dinah Venture.

The Dinah Venture specialists — all girls — gathered first-hand testimonies from the 15 returned hostages, one survivor of an tried rape in the course of the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, 17 eye and ear witnesses and 27 first responders who attended the scenes of the assaults.

These testimonies, coupled with forensic stories and pictures and movies from the assaults, led them to conclude that Hamas used sexual violence in a widespread, systematic and “tactical” manner as a “weapon of struggle.”

The report, revealed on Tuesday, describes a number of the survivors’ experiences.

One feminine hostage was crushed and sexually assaulted at gunpoint whereas in captivity, in line with the report. She stated she was chained by an iron ankle chain for 3 weeks and was repeatedly requested in regards to the timing of her menstrual cycle. The report particulars that lots of the 15 former hostages had been threatened with rape within the type of pressured marriage. Virtually all of them reported verbal sexual harassment and a few bodily sexual harassment, together with undesirable touching of personal components, it stated.

Israel has prior to now accused worldwide organizations, together with the UN and its companies, of ignoring widespread sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas and different militant teams in the course of the October 7 assaults.

The Dinah Venture is an Israeli group established following the assaults to hunt justice for victims of sexual violence. Made up of authorized and gender specialists, it’s led by authorized scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddari and Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, who was the previous chief army prosecutor of the Israel Protection Forces, and operates beneath the auspices of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Middle for the Development of Girls at Bar-Ilan College.

The primary official acknowledgment by the UN of the usage of sexual violence in the course of the assaults got here some 5 months after October 7. Then, following a mission to Israel, the UN’s Particular Consultant on Sexual Violence in Battle Pramila Patten published a report concluding there have been affordable grounds to consider conflict-related sexual violence occurred in a number of areas, and that there was clear and convincing proof that hostages in Gaza had been subjected to sexual assaults.

Hamas has denied prior to now that militants dedicated sexual violence, saying in an announcement in December that these had been “unfounded lies and allegations.”

The size of the atrocities dedicated on the day of the assaults meant that first responders and investigators had been overwhelmed. In response to Jewish customs, our bodies have to be buried as quickly as doable after demise, so the main focus of the primary responders, a lot of whom had been Orthodox Jewish volunteers, was on recovering stays moderately than investigation.

In lots of cases, authorities didn’t have an opportunity to gather adequate forensic proof as a result of they had been attending scenes whereas the assaults had been nonetheless ongoing. This meant that there have been typically no detailed information or images of the crime scenes within the speedy aftermath. Most of the victims of sexual violence had been murdered by their attackers, which meant there have been nearly no first-hand testimonies, in line with the report.

As a number of the hostages had been launched and extra time handed, permitting victims to course of their experiences, researchers had been in a position to accumulate extra complete first-hand proof.

The Dinah Venture researchers known as for the sexual violence perpetrated in the course of the assaults to be acknowledged as crimes towards humanity, and stated the perpetrators have to be held accountable and obtain worldwide condemnation.