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Evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks
...On Monday, UN-appointed independent experts said that “given the number of victims and the extensive premeditation and planning of the attacks”, mounting evidence of rapes and genital mutilation pointed to possible crimes against humanity.
They've been raping the hostages, too.
...Renana Eitan, the head of psychiatry at the Ichilov Tel Aviv medical centre, previously told the Guardian that of the 14 freed hostages still under her care – including children – several had been subjected to or witnessed sexual abuse. The US state department has said that the week-long truce between Israel and Hamas in November broke down because the militants refused to release the remaining women in its custody, over fears they would speak publicly about sexual violence....
From the BBC:
"Some women were raped before they were dead, some raped while injured, and some were already dead when the terrorists raped their lifeless bodies," his statement says. "I desperately wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do."...
Israel's Women's Empowerment Minister, May Golan, told the BBC that a few victims of rape or sexual assault had survived the attacks, and that they were all currently receiving psychiatric treatment.
"But very, very few. The majority were brutally murdered," she said. "They aren't able to talk - not with me, and not to anyone from the government [or] from the media."
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.....
From the left-wing oppositionist Haaretz: New Report Reveals Hamas' 'Widespread and Systematic' Sexual Violence on October 7
Zagagi-Pinhas told the Times that they had found patterns – victims found dead, stripped and mutilated, including being shot in the genitalia, and tied to trees – in several different areas. "The fact that the same things happened in three to six locations can't be coincidence, but proof this was premeditated," she said. "Many of the witnesses we spoke to talk of the victims being shot and them still trying to rape a dead body."
This report includes testimony from 17 people who saw or heard attacks, therapists who worked with survivors, a victim of attempted rape at the Nova festival, dozens of first responders and 15 former hostages who returned from Hamas captivity – including two men.... Mental health experts who spoke to Haaretz for an investigation last year told of dozens more witnesses of assaults, including gang rapes. Oftentimes, the victims were killed after their assaults.