OPINION:
A two-year investigation by an independent Israeli commission found that Hamas engaged in a systematic reign of sexual abuse and other atrocities on and after Oct. 7, 2023. It included raping men, women, boys and the dead.
The 298-page report, along with an accompanying “war crimes” archive, depicts Hamas terrorists as homicidal monsters. Invading from the Gaza Strip and reaching the Nova Music Festival, Hamas began gang-raping women and then assassinating them.
“There was laughter. There were jokes. They were passing them from one to another,” said a witness who was able to hide and survive. Hamas made a man watch them rape his girlfriend. “And then they killed both of them,” the survivor said.
Another survivor said she saw a woman gang-raped as Hamas cut off her breast at the same time. “He cuts her breast. … He throws it on the road, and they are playing with it,” she said.
A mortician, Sharon Laufer, who prepared recovered bodies for burial, said: “Many times these beautiful young women were shot in the eye, disfiguring their faces. And, you know, they didn’t die from that because they were killed with a bullet to the heart.”
The report, “Silenced No More. Sexual Terror Unveiled: The Untold Atrocities of October 7 and Against Hostages in Captivity,” was produced by the Israeli nonprofit the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children.
The archives contain 10,000 photographs and videos, as well as interviews with 430 victims and witnesses from the day Hamas infiltrated southern Israel and murdered more than 1,200 people.
“Hamas and its collaborators used sexual torture to maximize pain and suffering,” the report states. “Victims endured brutal acts, including burning, mutilation, rape, restraining, forced insertion of objects into the genitalia, shootings to the faces and genital area, killings and abuses in front of family members and executions.”
“The men pulled a woman from the vehicle,” said Ray Cohen, who survived the glider attack on the Nova Musical Festival. They “forcibly removed her clothing and raped her. … They repeatedly stabbed her, killing her. … They continued to rape her after her death.”
Hamas gleefully recorded its cruelty and posted videos worldwide to supposedly demoralize the Jews it wants to erase from the earth.
“Armed groups recorded acts of abuse, humiliation, and killing, and circulated the footage through social media platforms and victims’ own digital accounts,” the commission says. “In numerous cases, family members first learned of the fate of their loved ones through images or videos distributed by perpetrators. This deliberate use of digital media transformed acts of violence into instruments of psychological warfare directed not only at victims but also at families and society at large.”
Press reports and other investigations have narrated Hamas savagery, but the commission says its body of work by teams of researchers, lawyers and documentarians represents an unprecedented record of Oct. 7 for the history books.
The commission was founded and led by Cochav Elkayam Levy, an Israeli human rights lawyer whose aim was to expose Hamas’ crimes against women and children. The report also tells of all the victims.
“Across multiple locations and phases of the assault, including during abduction, transfer, and captivity, Hamas and its collaborators deployed recurring tactics of sexual abuse and torture against victims,” the report reads. “These crimes were marked by extreme cruelty and profound human suffering, often inflicted in ways designed to amplify terror and humiliation.”
More than 3,000 celebrants were enjoying the Nova Music Festival when Hamas terrorists arrived and immediately started killing and raping. The Israeli woman who was able to hide in the caravan that brought her was a key commission witness.
“I heard one rape where they were passing her around,” the witness said. “She was probably injured, judging by her screams — screams you have never heard anywhere. It’s between silence and screams, between pain and wanting to die. These are screams. … It’s something I have never heard in my life. … And after they finished, they shot her.”
The commission also relied on a male survivor who said he too was raped. He passed a polygraph and showed his medical records.
“They held me by the neck and beat me,” the man said. “They laughed, they were really pleased, as if I was their sex doll. It felt like all boundaries were broken. … There were no boundaries. I was completely naked. They did whatever they wanted to me.”
The commission visited Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the hardest hit communities. Hamas murdered 96 residents and took 30 as hostages, including 10 children.
One woman’s body was recovered from under a bed.
A witness at the post-attack scene said, “We dismantled part of the bed … and before us was revealed the body of a woman. The woman’s body was completely naked. In parts of the body, in the intimate area, nails were embedded. In the vaginal area there was embedded some kind of plastic or metal or something that was inside her.”
Hamas paraded and sexually abused hostages. An Israeli man who was 19 when taken and spent two years in captivity said: “It was sexual violence, and its main purpose was to humiliate. His [captor’s] goal was to humiliate me, to crush my dignity, and that’s exactly what he did.”
When asked whether these acts were repeated, he replied: “Yes. It’s hard for me to talk about this specific part. I don’t like talking about it.”
Two minors said their captors forced them to perform sexual acts on family members.
The commission’s work continues. It wants a judicial body to review its report and bring criminal charges.
“The prosecution of the sexual and gender-based crimes committed on October 7th and during captivity is an urgent priority,” the report said.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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