Edited by: Fern Sidman

A recent United Nations report, released on Monday, sheds light on the horrifying occurrences of sexual violence during the Hamas-led attack on Israel that took place on October 7. According to the information provided in a New York Times report that was published on Monday, the findings reveal a pattern of sexual abuse, including sadistic and barbaric rape and gang rape, in multiple locations, leaving victims traumatized and communities in shock. The report, led by Pramila Patten, the secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict, presents alarming details of the atrocities committed during the brutal massacre that claimed the lives of 1200 Israelis and others.

The United Nations deployed a team of experts to Israel from late January to early February to investigate the claims of sexual violence. Led by Patten, the team conducted an in-depth inquiry into the incidents, focusing on various locations, including the Nova music festival site, Road 232, Kibbutz Re’im, and the surrounding areas, as was reported by the NYT.  The report establishes “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred during the Hamas-led attack.

The report states that in most cases, victims who were initially subjected to rape were then killed. Furthermore, it highlights two incidents involving the rape of women’s corpses, as was noted in the NYT report.

Hamas leaders have vehemently denied the accusations of sexual violence during the October 7 attack. The report acknowledges the challenge of determining responsibility due to the diverse array of terrorists involved in the premeditated massacre. Despite the denial, the UN report underscores the severity of the situation, calling attention to the need for accountability and justice for the victims.

The UN experts uncovered additional instances of sexual violence that were not widely reported before. These included the rape of a woman outside a bomb shelter at the entrance of Kibbutz Re’im, a distressing incident corroborated by witness testimony and digital evidence, as was indicated in the NYT report. The report also highlighted a disturbing pattern of victims, mostly women, found fully or partially naked, bound, and shot across multiple locations.

The report offers a more conclusive finding when it comes to hostages seized in Israel and taken to Gaza by the Hamas terrorists.  The NYT said that without delving into specific details, the UN report definitively confirmed that some of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip were subjected to instances of repeated rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhumane treatment,  providing a stark revelation of the extent of the brutality faced by these individuals.

It further indicates that such abuse continues against hostages still in captivity, painting a grim picture of the atrocities endured by innocent civilians.

The UN report also highlighted “clear and convincing information” gathered from survivors, confirming the occurrence of sexual violence in multiple locations, the NYT report indicated.  These acts, described as degrading treatment, represent a grave violation of human rights and dignity. Despite the challenges faced in verifying all reports, the findings point to a disturbing pattern of severe abuse targeting women and children.

Israel’s response to the report reflects acknowledgment and condemnation of the crimes committed. The Foreign Affairs Ministry welcomed the recognition of the widespread nature of the offenses, noting the report’s identification of a pattern involving rape, torture, and sexual abuse across different locations, according to the report in the NYT. This acknowledgment underscores the severity of the situation and the need for swift action to address and prevent further atrocities.

However, the UN report also highlighted the difficulty in fully corroborating all allegations of sexual violence. While evidence suggests the possibility of such acts occurring in places like Kibbutz Kfar Aza and Kibbutz Be’eri, the report acknowledges challenges in verification, as was noted in the NYT report.

Despite recurring patterns of victims found undressed, bound, and shot, the UN team of investigators who compiled the damning report refused to declare that the perpetrators of these sexual crimes were indeed Hamas terrorists.

The challenges in investigating sexual violence during the October 7th Hamas attack are multifaceted, as outlined in the UN report. Forensic evidence, crucial in establishing instances of assault, was often inaccessible due to the widespread devastation and large number of casualties, as was indicated in the NYT report. First responders, primarily volunteers, prioritized search and rescue operations over evidence collection, further complicating the process, the report added.  Additionally, the condition of many bodies, severely burned in the attack, compromised potential evidence, adding another layer of complexity to the investigation.

Despite efforts to reach out to survivors of the assaults on October 7, the UN team reported a lack of direct communication with affected women in Israel. According to the information provided in the NYT report, the trauma endured by survivors has hindered their ability to come forward, with only a small number still undergoing treatment for the psychological aftermath of the attacks.

The report also highlighted a deep-seated and well-founded distrust among Israelis towards international organizations such as the United Nations. This skepticism, coupled with the limited timeframe of the team’s presence on the ground for two and a half weeks, allegedly posed significant barriers to conducting thorough investigations and gathering comprehensive data, the NYT report said.

The experts caution that determining the full extent of sexual violence during the October 7 attacks and their aftermath may be a prolonged and arduous process. The report in the NYT said that the investigators emphasized that the true prevalence of such barbaric violence may take months or even years to emerge, and there is a possibility that it may never be fully known.

The report calls upon the Israeli government to grant access to other UN bodies, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian Territory, as was mentioned in the NYT report. These bodies are urged to conduct thorough, independent investigations into the allegations of sexual violence against Palestinians.

In response to the report’s recommendations, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lior Haiat, stated that Israel rejects the call for investigations into Palestinian claims of sexual violence by Israeli elements, the report in the NYT added.

Contrary to the expectations of an investigative mission, Pramila Patten clarified that her team’s primary objective was not investigative. Instead, their focus was on amplifying the voices of victims and survivors, offering them support, and seeking avenues for justice and accountability, as per the information in the NYT report. Patten emphasized that investigative mandates fall under the purview of other UN agencies.

The UN team comprised technical experts capable of interpreting forensic evidence, analyzing digital information from open sources, and conducting interviews with victims and witnesses of sexual violence, the report in the NYT indicated. This diverse expertise enabled the team to gather comprehensive data and insights into the sexual violence.

Patten highlighted the challenges encountered by the UN experts, including the difficulty of sifting through a lack of reliable information and navigating inaccurate accounts from untrained individuals, the NYT report said.

The NYT also noted that Patten said that sexual violence was being “weaponized” in the context of conflict.

As was recently reported in March 3rd article titled “A Feminist Open Letter Justifies Hamas Rape” written by Dr. Phyllis Chesler that appeared on the Jewish News Syndicate web site, an “open letter” was released by left wing feminists and was addressed to the “Israeli and the U.S. Governments and Others Weaponizing the Issue of Rape.”

Dr. Chesler who has taken the lead in boldly speaking out against sexual violence perpetrated against women for the last six decades has penned a recent series of searing articles on the rape, grotesque mutilation and murder of Israeli women and girls within hours after the Hamas massacre took place.

In her article she notes that those involved in composing this “open letter” were incentivized to do so because, “there is just too much support for Israel for the framers and the signatories of this letter to bear. There were too many fact-based condemnations of Hamas’s sadistic barbarism on Oct. 7. The left-wing and lesbian feminists could stand it no longer. They finally had to speak out against what they call the “weaponization” of rape by those who dare to oppose Hamas. They do so, the signatories claim, in order to justify Israel’s “war against the people of Gaza.”

Chesler continues by saying, “The outright lies and reversals of reality in this letter are all ways of linguistically denying or minimizing the pornographically sadistic sexual violence that Hamas committed against Israeli civilians: Women, girls, boys and men. Hamas continues to inflict sexual violence on their Israeli hostages. (The letter strategically refers only to “hostages,” not “Israeli hostages.”)

The letter is not particularly interested in Oct. 7 because it happened to Israelis. Maybe the signatories don’t actually care about rape. After all, it happens to women and girls everywhere. Or perhaps the signatories have decided that there is not enough evidence of Hamas’s mass rape even though Hamas terrorists themselves filmed and photographed it and live streamed the results to their own and the victims’ families.”

According to a December 28, 2023 report in the NYT, it stated that, “a two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.”

The report added that “relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors, The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.”

The Times viewed photographs of one woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin. The Times also viewed a video, provided by the Israeli military, showing two dead Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who appeared to have been shot directly in their vaginas, according to the December 28th report in the NYT.

The NYT report on that day also noted that investigators with Israel’s top national police unit, Lahav 433, have been steadily gathering evidence but they have not put a number on how many women were raped, saying that most are dead — and buried — and that they will never know.

On December 4th,the BBC reported that, “several people involved in collecting and identifying the bodies of those killed in the attack told us they had seen multiple signs of sexual assault, including broken pelvises, bruises, cuts and tears, and that the victims ranged from children and teenagers to pensioners. Video testimony of an eyewitness at the Nova music festival, shown to journalists by Israeli police, detailed the gang rape, mutilation and execution of one victim.

Videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack, and photographs of bodies taken at the sites afterwards, suggest that women were sexually targeted by their attackers. Few victims are thought to have survived to tell their own stories. Their last moments are being pieced together from survivors, body-collectors, morgue staff and footage from the attack sites.”

On January 4th, CNN reported speaking with Raz Cohen, a survivor of Hamas’ murderous rampage in Israel on October 7. He told the news network that he had “gone to the Nova music festival in the desert of southern Israel to be with his girlfriend of two months, Maya. She tried to flee with another friend and was killed, he said. Cohen saw another young woman shot in the head as he ran to hide in a bush.”

It was in that spot where he witnessed the rape of this young woman, he told CNN.

Cohen said of the Hamas terrorists that perpetrated the rape, “five men came out of the van and captured a woman, ripping off her clothes as they formed a circle around her. One raped her and killed her with a knife. Then he raped her again.”