‘Hamas leaders must account for sadistic sexual violence’

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

South African Jewish gender-based violence activists are calling for Hamas leadership to be held to a higher level of accountability for sexual violence towards Jews that was “beyond the scope of human comprehension” during and after 7 October.

This was in response to a report released last week by an Israeli rape crisis support group that concluded that brutal sexual violence against women, children, and men committed by Hamas terrorists was “systematic and widespread”.

“Certain acts stand out as unprecedented in the annals of wartime sexual violence,” said Wendy Hendler, the co-founder of Koleinu SA, an organisation that supports victims of abuse.

“The intentional and repetitive nature of the brutality across the many attack sites, the barbaric nature of the assaults, including the mutilation of faces as well as genital organs, the infliction of sexual torture, was aimed at humiliation, demoralisation, and degradation of Israeli society,” Hendler said.

According to the report, most of those sexually assaulted by Hamas terrorists were killed afterward, and some even during the act of rape. Others were found dead later, their genitals mutilated beyond recognition or penetrated with objects or weapons.

The report by The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI), an umbrella organisation of nine such organisations in Israel, found that the Hamas attack included “brutal acts of violent rape”, often involving threats with weapons specifically directed at injured women, and multiple incidents involved gang rape.

Upon reading it, any decent person, will be left sick to their stomach at Hamas’s weaponisation of rape. Hamas has repeatedly denied the allegations.

The grim 35-page report details the “sadistic and systematic” nature of the sexual violence employed by Hamas terrorists during its attack on southern Israel, as well as evidence of such crimes being perpetrated on an ongoing basis against hostages still held in Gaza.

The association said the report, written by Dr Carmit Klar Chalamish, the head of the organisation’s research department, and Noa Berger, its director of content, “is the first official research since October 7, consolidating evidence and providing conclusions” from “numerous confidential and public pieces of information”.

Said the report, “Often, the rape was perpetrated in front of an audience – partners, family, or friends – in a manner intended to increase the pain and humiliation of all present.” They were forced at gunpoint to watch their loved ones being violated. The attackers also “cut and mutilated sexual organs and other body parts with knives”, it said.

The report, which was submitted to the United Nations (UN) last Wednesday, 21 February, asserted that its information and analysis “clearly demonstrates that sexual abuse wasn’t an isolated incident or sporadic cases but rather a clear operational strategy”.

Based on analysis of the information collected by the organisation, the report concluded that sex crimes were committed against people in four main locations: at the Nova music festival; in kibbutzim; on Israel Defense Forces bases; and against hostages held in Gaza.

The report was based on confidential and public testimony, eye-witness accounts, interviews with victims and emergency medical workers, and news articles. One such article included a month-long investigation published by The New York Times in late December, which documented a pattern of gender-based violence in the Hamas-led 7 October attack.

The report was sent to decision makers in the UN to leave “no room for denial or disregard”.

“The terrorist organisation Hamas chose to harm Israel strategically in two clear ways – kidnapping citizens and committing sadistic sexual crimes,” said ARCCI Executive Director Orit Sulitzeanu. “Silence will be remembered as a historical stain on those who chose to remain silent and deny the sexual crimes committed by Hamas.”

The report highlighted that it couldn’t provide the full numerical measure of the extent of Hamas’s sexual violence, “most of which resulted in the victims’ deaths, making their full extent unknown and possibly unknowable”.

Men weren’t spared from sexual assault, and several were found with mutilated genitalia.

“Since it takes on average 20 to 30 years for a survivor of sexual abuse to come forward, we can expect that we’re going to be hearing more and more horrific reports for years to come, particularly the sexual assaults on males who struggle to talk about it ever,” said Rozanne Sack, the co-founder of Koleinu SA.

“Part of Hamas’s psychological warfare was to target males, either to make them watch family members being sexually assaulted or to be sexually assaulted themselves in front of their spouses. The aim of this is to render them helpless and inflict long lasting psychological guilt. Part of the core identity of males involves their role as protectors of the family. The impact of this psychological damage to the psyche of men will be felt in families for generations to come.”

Whereas wartime rape is a known phenomenon throughout history, Sack said she believed that the sexual atrocities of 7 October were exceptional “in that they can be proved to be part of Hamas’s war policy, instructed in advance to all terrorists as a key component of their terror strategy”.

Because of this, she said, “We need to demand that Hamas leadership is held to a higher level of accountability in the International Criminal Court for these crimes that are beyond the scope of human comprehension.”

Miranda Jordan-Friedmann, the founding director of Women & Men Against Child Abuse, and Luke Lamprecht, the head of advocacy at the organisation, said Hamas perpetrators of these crimes should be held to account.

“These men representing Hamas should be brought to an international court, and should be tried for multiple rapes all with aggravating circumstances, including torture. It’s clear that the motive was to defile the most vulnerable in a society in a way that they won’t be able to live with themselves. They used rape as a weapon of war. The victims will be traumatised for the rest of their lives, and therefore the men that did this should also serve life sentences.”