The BBC has seen and heard evidence of rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the 7 October Hamas attacks.
WARNING: CONTAINS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE
David Katz from Israel’s cyber crime unit which is involved in the investigation, told journalists that it was too early to prove that sexual violence was planned as part of the attack, but that data extracted from the phones of the Hamas attackers suggested that “everything was systematic”
I wonder if Israel also knew of this, since they knew a year prior, but did not think it was possible.
The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.
Hamas followed the blueprint with shocking precision. The document called for a barrage of rockets at the outset of the attack, drones to knock out the security cameras and automated machine guns along the border, and gunmen to pour into Israel en masse in paragliders, on motorcycles and on foot — all of which happened on Oct. 7.
Then, in July, just three months before the attacks, a veteran analyst with Unit 8200, Israel’s signals intelligence agency, warned that Hamas had conducted an intense, daylong training exercise that appeared similar to what was outlined in the blueprint.
Officials privately concede that, had the military taken these warnings seriously and redirected significant reinforcements to the south, where Hamas attacked, Israel could have blunted the attacks or possibly even prevented them.
Underpinning all these failures was a single, fatally inaccurate belief that Hamas lacked the capability to attack and would not dare to do so. That belief was so ingrained in the Israeli government, officials said, that they disregarded growing evidence to the contrary.
The failures to connect the dots echoed another analytical failure more than two decades ago, when the American authorities also had multiple indications that the terrorist group Al Qaeda was preparing an assault. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were largely a failure of analysis and imagination, a government commission concluded.
Underpinning all these failures was a single, fatally inaccurate belief that Hamas lacked the capability to attack and would not dare to do so.
Kind of throws a monkey wrench in the whole “Just leave Gaza” mentality you see so often.
I mean, everyone hates Hamas but it’s a scooch more complex than that. I don’t think “leaving” Gaza involves a 16 year blockade and control over their electricity, water, and telecommunications. And it ignores the West Bank.
I’m not siding with fucking Hamas but everyone reducing this to the atrocities on Oct. 7 had better be under 25. It’s annoying the fuck out of the old people who remember a time before Rihanna and the MCU.
I don’t think “leaving” Gaza involves a 16 year blockade and control over their electricity, water, and telecommunications
Hamas had money to make significant changes in infrastructure and they spent that money arming themselves.
Since that didn’t happen, I think getting that put together is basically the bare minimum Israel can do after leveling the country. “you break it, you fix it” should be an absolute minimum standard here.
I’ve supported a 2 state solution since I was old enough to learn about this in the early 90s.
I’m starting to think funneling money meant for Gaza through Hamas was a bad idea. I wonder what idiot prime minister of Israel made that decision in order to weaken the Palestinian Authority. https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
You seem to be wanting to have an argument and I’m not sure why?
I apologize, I wasn’t intending to argue with you. The tone didn’t come through how I intended.
I’m frustrated by seeing the same simplistic debates over and over again but you didn’t make one of those arguments. I was just on a rant.
I think it is still more complex than that.
Under a two state solution (and where we assume that Palestine was able to stand up infrastructure and weren’t dependent on Israel or Egypt or whoever else): Hamas would likely be their government. They have been the de facto and de jure leadership of Gaza since the mid 2000s and were a very strong force going back to the 90s. And while there are a LOT of indications that they largely accomplished that through back channel support by Israel (push out the less radical PLO), they also received support from other Arab nations who would prefer Israel to not exist.
And you don’t need to be in an open air concentration camp to foster evil like this. Hamas were straight up using ISIS/ISIL “tactics” with their systematic gangrape and mutilation of women and civilians. You can argue that the Islamic State came to power because of Russian (and later US/Coalition) meddling, but it is worth remembering they were specifically founded to engage in assassinations and ethnic cleansing of Shia muslims.
And speculation is that Iran are supporting the Islamic State and that Iran supported Hamas in these attacks.
Under a two state solution? I think the border would have been more fortified. But raids are a thing and the IDF already treated the perimeter around Gaza like a military crossing.
It is undeniable that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians nurtured an environment in which young men would radicalize. But we have seen this same kind of radicalization in nations that Israel hasn’t touched in decades (or ever). And most of the “tactics” and players are the same, regardless of which city they are based in.
So I guess I don’t think things would change. We would still have the IDF bombing Palestine into non-existence over claims of stopping Hamas. We probably would have less pushback (it is not Israel’s responsibility to provide fuel and power to a sovereign country) but the events of the past month or so would likely be playing out the same. In large part because any attempts to pretend the 7th had anything to do with Palestinian Independence are ignoring what Hamas actually is.
And speculation is that Iran are supporting the Islamic State and that Iran supported Hamas in these attacks.
This isn’t speculation so much as straight up fact.
But we have seen this same kind of radicalization in nations that Israel hasn’t touched in decades (or ever). And most of the “tactics” and players are the same, regardless of which city they are based in.
Absolutely agreed.
We probably would have less pushback (it is not Israel’s responsibility to provide fuel and power to a sovereign country)
While I think a lot of our “what ifs” (even though I agree with you) are ultimately meaningless, I think the value of this right here cannot be overstressed.
Israel had no responsibility to provide power or water to Gaza, full stop. They certainly had no responsibility to provide it once they’d declared war. Palestine being a fully independent country ideally would have put unique pressure on Hamas from existing allies (read: Iran) to actually feed, provide water/power for, and even seek investment (though, obviously, hostile Iranian investment).
From a purely humanitarian standpoint, I see this as an absolute win. Whether it would have truly helped, who knows. My money is where yours is, on no, it wouldn’t have helped.
Please note: Had Israel, “Just left Gaza”, anytime in the past forty Years, Oct. 7th would never have happened. Sadly despite all the claims of having pulled out of Gaza and the West Bank, all they really did was withdraw the troops from their Concentration Camps.
Please note: Had Israel, “Just left Gaza”, anytime in the past forty Years, Oct. 7th would never have happened
I very strongly disagree with this. Israel had completely pulled out of Gaza years before Oct 7
False. They still controlled all movement in and out, and all imports/exports. At no point did they do anything but pull their soldiers out of their concentration camps.
but pull their soldiers out of their concentration camps.
So like, leaving Gaza.
Also Gaza isn’t a concentration camp. It’s a nation that is distrusted by all of its neighbors for sponsoring terrorism.
No amount of weird hyperbole is going to make you correct here.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
“It really feels like Hamas learned how to weaponise women’s bodies from ISIS [the Islamic State group] in Iraq, from cases in Bosnia,” said Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy, a legal expert at the Davis Institute of International Relations at Hebrew University.
One of the body-collectors volunteering with the religious organisation Zaka described to me signs of torture and mutilation which included, he said, a pregnant woman whose womb had been ripped open before she was killed, and her foetus stabbed while it was inside her.
Investigators admit that in those first chaotic days after the attacks, with some areas still active combat zones, opportunities to carefully document the crime scenes, or take forensic evidence, were limited or missed.
When we visited, hospital trolleys, their iron skeletons topped with khaki stretchers, stood neatly lined up in front of the containers that housed the dead; the white plastic overalls of those on shift translucent under the floodlights.
Amid the horror of what happened to women here, Captain Maayan from the Shura identification unit says the hardest moments are when she sees “the mascara on their eyelashes, or the earrings they put on that morning”.
The original article contains 1,921 words, the summary contains 234 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Holy crap Hamas really was trying to get bingo on their war crime card. The horror of their crimes is next level.
The whataboutism crowd should soon pile on to excuse Hamas as justified and righteousness. No evil to see here definitely! 🤮
What about the ones being raped by the Israelis?
What do you mean Sunday and Monday can rape people?
I call bullshit, whoever wrote this piece without questioning the validity of the witness statements needs to go back to school for journalism. Some of these claims are transparently fallacious to anyone with any medical training.
Random volunteers aren’t going to be able to examine victims for sexual assault based on bruising, or lacerations found while collecting bodies. That’s going to require an actual autopsy by an actual medical examiner. Also, how is a volunteer going to inspect if a body has a pelvic fracture, and what does that have to do with sexual assault? Sacral fractures are only associated with SA for a very young child, and then only at 5% of SA victims age 5 or younger.
I found it odd that they published claims from volunteers and politicians, but I have yet to hear from an actual MD that corroborates their claims.
You’re getting downvoted but the piece states “The BBC could not independently verify this account.”
One of the quotes is someone saying they didn’t see the violent attack but sexual assault just sounds different.
Any reasonable person can agree that Hamas is not good, we don’t need propaganda making them appear like complete monsters.
Yes. That is reporting. Especially in the wake of outlets jumping the gun on a lot of other aspects of this.
But if you read through the rest of the article, they reference
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.
Videos filmed by Hamas include footage of one woman, handcuffed and taken hostage with cuts to her arms and a large patch of blood staining the seat of her trousers.
In others, women carried away by the fighters appear to be naked or semi-clothed.
Multiple photographs from the sites after the attack show the bodies of women naked from the waist down, or with their underwear ripped to one side, legs splayed, with signs of trauma to their genitals and legs.
Even if you believe that there is a focused effort to plant government agents at every single level and with multiple aide organizations all to promote some evil conspiracy: The above is footage and images that reporters (and civilians who click the wrong links online…) have seen.
So yes, it is mostly circumstantial evidence (which, regardless of what tv lawyers say, still has validity) indicating violent trauma and tearing of clothes of women’s genital regions. Combine that with the sad truth that men given guns and power and unleashed on civilian populations tend to commit rape and… there is a lot of evidence of rape.
And if you believe any of the witness and victim accounts (that were also given to non-Israeli sources) then it is truly horrific and… on par with what ISIS/ISIL do on a daily basis. Which makes sense considering the speculation that Iran is heavily involved in all of this.
From my read of the article, there are basically no victim statements because the ostensible victims are either dead or non-communicative and under psychiatric care (in which case their testimony should be kept private until they are capable of choosing to share it.)
I completely acknowledge that when people with guns are unleashed on a civilian populace, sexual assault is a frequent result. My issue is that with the willingness to publish unconfirmed accounts a lot of western media is functioning as propaganda for the hard right Israeli government.
… Your response is literally “There are just a bunch of murdered and mutilated women with signs of trauma to their genitals. Since none of them can testify, no rape happened”
Lemme guess? You play lacrosse, go to a country club, and back the blue?
Yup, you guessed it: my unwillingness to accept an oppressive police state’s presentation of events from another oppressive police state’s media wing is basically a vote for someone to the right of Pat Buchanan.
Trauma happens in war zones. Hamas at the absolute best didn’t care about civilian casualties, and likely much worse, including fighters committing sexual assault of various forms. We’ve also seen massive shifts in the narrative of how the events of October 7 played out, including evidence that a large number of civilian casualties were caused by Israeli soldiers and not by Hamas fighters as was originally claimed.
My issue with this piece is that it puts forth unconfirmed reports of horrific torture from people who admit they didn’t see it happen and admits that they have not confirmed the accounts. If they reported on video that the BBC had been able to authenticate, I wouldn’t have an issue with the narrative. But there’s been a huge amount of video people have posted that when analyzed is not from Gaza at all, or is not from October 7, so I tend to be skeptical of accounts that admit they haven’t been confirmed.
And if Israel were killing hamas instead of innocent civilians, no one would be concerned.
this comment is just disgusting
I think Israel would lose most of, if not all of it’s support, even from the US, if it was found out that their troops were regularly committing sexual mutilation and rapes on Palestinian civilians. This is a step beyond just killing innocents. It’s universally revolting behavior.
“But killing brown kids is cool!” - translated for you.
This is the translation of your previous comment? That’s pretty fucked up of you to say.
