Hamas uses sexual abuse as part of a “genocidal strategy,” Israeli experts say

Hamas used sexual abuse as a “part of a deliberate genocidal strategy” during the attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel, a group of Israeli legal and sexual experts claiming a new report calling for justice.

The Dina’s project says the report is based on a review of evidence, including first -hand testimony from survivors of an attempt at rape and 15 former hostages conducted in Gaza, as well as accounts from witnesses to sexual attacks.

He states what the group describes as a “legal plan for pursuing these crimes, even when the direct attribution of individual perpetrators is impossible.”

Hamas denied his strength to commit sexual abuse of women or abused female hostages.

However, UN Mission concluded in March 2024 that there was “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual abuse related to conflictIncluding rape and rape of the gang and that there is “convincing information” that the trials have been subjected to sexual abuse, including rape and sexualized torture.

And before being killed by Israel, Three top Hamas leaders were also accused by the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court for crimes against human rape humanity and other forms of sexual abuseIn addition to murder, extermination and torture.

On October 7, hundreds of Hamas members and allied Palestinian armed groups attacked South Israel, where they killed about 1,200 people and took 251 other hostages.

Israel replied by launching a military campaign in Gaza during which more than 57,500 people were killed, according to the health ministry in the territory.

Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of rape and sexual abuse

The Dina project started after October 7 to continue justice as victims of sexual abuse. It was founded by the legal scientist Ruth Halperin-Cadar, a lawyer and former chief military prosecutor Sharon Mygi-Pinhas, and a former judge and Deputy Prosecutor General Nava Ben-Is.

Writes this The report published on Tuesday“He finds that Hamas uses sexual abuse as a tactical weapon as part of a genocidal scheme, and for the purpose of terrorizing and dehumanization of Israeli society.”

It also “creates a way to justice for the victims of the attack on October 7 and potentially for the victims in other areas of conflict,” according to the group.

The authors claim to have reviewed a large volume of sources ranging from social media publications to recorded testimony, as well as forensic evidence and visual and audio evidence.

The report – who does not identify the victims but cites reports that name some of them – it is said that a female survivor of the attack of the Music Festival in Nova on October 7 told members of the Dina project that she had been attempted to rape and sexual assault.

According to the report, one of the 15 former hostages said she was forced to perform a sexual act that was preceded by sexual abuse and verbal and physical sexual harassment. She also said she had withstanding forced nudity, an experience that was reported by six other hostages.

Almost all hostages report verbal and some physical harassment, including “unwanted physical contact in private parts,” the report said, while six says they also face threats of a forced marriage.

Two hostage men said they were subjected to forced nudity and physical abuse when they were naked, one also telling the shaving of all their hair on the body, according to the report.

Dina’s project says the accounts of people who have seen or heard incidents with sexual abuse show that such crimes are “widespread and systematic” on October 7th.

According to the report, five witnesses report at least four separate cases of gang rape; Seven report at least eight other individual cases of rape or severe sexual attacks, some of them are captured; Five reported at least three separate cases of sexual assault, some captive; And three report three separate occasions of mutilation.

Nine of those cases associated with the Nova Music Festival, two to the military base of Nahal Oz, one to the road on the road 232 and four to the incidents that occur in captivity in Gaza, the report said.

Twenty -seven first responding in the meantime described dozens of cases that showed “clear signs of sexual abuse in six places,” the report – the Nova, Road 232, and Kibett from Be’ri, Alumim, Nosal Oz and Revim.

The report also says that “most victims were constantly muted” because they were killed on October 7 or left too traumatized to talk.

In response, the authors provide what they describe as “the first global legal plan explaining how to pursue sexual abuse as a weapon of war – even when the evidence is dismissed, they are gone, and individual perpetrators cannot be tied to individual actions.”

This includes an evidentiary framework for categorizing information on the basis of its proximity to incidents and its evidential value and a legal framework for establishing criminal liability for atrocities committed during mass attacks, even when a person has not committed each specific act or has not been intended with his committee by someone else.

The report ends, saying that justice is “essential not only for individual victims, but also for the establishment of wider principles: that sexual abuse in conflict is a serious violation of international law, that the perpetrators will be liable and that the international community will not allow such crimes to be committed.”