Sexual and gender-based violence in the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel

During the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Israeli women and girls were reportedly raped, assaulted and mutilated by Hamas militants. Hamas is accused of having committing acts of gender-based violence, war crimes and crimes against humanity in keeping with the recognition of The International Criminal Court (ICC) that sexual violence is a war crime and a crime against humanity. Hamas has denied that its fighters committed rape and assault against women.

It was reported that some released hostages' testimonies indicated that both female and male hostages had been subjected to sexual violence by their captors while being held by Hamas in Gaza.

UN Women condemned the acts of rape by Hamas in early December 2023 and the International Criminal Court is expected to initiate a specific probe into sexual violence. Although not investigative in nature, a United Nations team concluded in March 2024 that there was "clear and convincing information" of Israeli hostages in Gaza experiencing "sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment", and there was also "reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang-rape, in at least three locations": the Nova music festival and its vicinities of Road 232 and kibbutz Re'im.

Overview

The attacks by Hamas on Israeli communities, in which 1,139 people were killed and 240 hostages were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, reportedly involved widespread sexual violence. In a review of evidence mainly provided by the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli officials, NBC News stated that the evidence "suggests that dozens of Israeli women were raped or sexually abused or mutilated". Hamas fighters infiltrated Israeli towns, where witnesses said they tortured, raped and sexually assaulted many women and girls of all ages, and some men.

Ina Kubbe, a scholar specializing in gender and conflict at Tel Aviv University, said that evidence aligns with sexual violence. However, she emphasized the necessity of a forensic investigation for an official determination of rape.

Assessments of motivation

Hamas has stated that profound and increasing anger about Israeli policy, the treatment of Palestinians and the expansion of Israeli settlements motivated their violent attacks on October 7, while experts such as one that Vox interviewed, say that sexual violence is an "inherent, if under-examined, aspect of violent conflict". Hamas admitted "mistakes were made" on October 7, but denied that its fighters committed rape and sexual assault, noting that it is forbidden in Islam.

Israelis and others have indeed accused Hamas of systematically using rape as a weapon of war.

ARCCI concluded that "Hamas terrorists employed sadistic practices aimed at intensifying the degree of humiliation and terror inherent in sexual violence".

Cochav Elkayam-Levy, an Israeli law academic heading the commission investigating sexual assault crimes on October 7 concluded that Hamas "weaponized" sexual violence in order to harm Israeli morale,

Locations

The ARCCI report categorizes four "arenas" (types of locations) of the alleged sexual violence:

• at the Nova (Re'im) outdoor music festival and the surrounding area to which attendees fled
• in kibbutzim – Be'eri and others – to civilians who were killed
• at Camp Shura and other IDF bases near the border, to soldiers
• in captivity in the Gaza Strip, to Israeli hostages

Types of acts

In February 2024, ARCCI, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers of Israel, published a report summarizing witness testimony and categorizing the alleged sexual violence of October 7 into "Practices of Rape During Wars" and "Sadistic Practices". Throughout the report ARCCI repeats conclusions that the alleged sexual violence was systematic, deliberate, widespread, and not spontaneous or incidental.

The "Practices of Rape During Wars" are categorized as:

• Systematic use of brutal violence to commit rape
• Presence of multiple abusers including gang rape
• Rape in the presence of family and/or community members
• Sexual offenses against males
• Execution during or after the rape

"Sadistic practices" are categorized as:

• Binding and tying
• Mutilation and destruction of genital organs
• Insertion of weapons into intimate areas
• Destruction and mutilation of the body

Evidence

Following the attacks, Israeli police, Shin Bet and Israeli military began to collect evidence, take witness statements and to interrogate captured Hamas militants concerning the alleged sexual violence perpetrated during the October 7th attack. Police recorded the difficulty in collecting physical evidence in a war zone, due to this the full extent of the crimes may never be known. Authorities retrieved video evidence, photographs of victims' bodies, and militants' testimonies which they said confirmed accounts of sexual assault. Autopsies of victims also corroborated these accounts, according to the Israeli police.

Testimony of Israelis

Survivors, witnesses, first responders, and military personnel provided accounts of the alleged rape, mutilation and other sexual violence that Hamas militants inflicted. An official from Lahav 433 told the Knesset that 1,500 testimonies had been collected. Shelly Harush, the police officer leading the investigation recounted to The Times on 2 December 2023: "It's clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people."

According to Tel Aviv University professor Tamar Herzig, witnesses heard militants discussing plans to rape specific girls. Herzig also said that they were also seen "parading the rape victims" with their clothes ripped off and blood between their legs. She said that testimony was taken from survivors who were brought to Israeli acute response centers. Herzig said that, over the next few weeks, forensic evidence collected from bodies of Israeli girls indicated that they had been raped, sometimes so violently that their legs and pelvis bones were broken. Survivors also testified to instances of gang rape and the breasts of young women being chopped off.

Interrogations of Hamas militants

Main article: Interrogation of militants in the Israel–Hamas war

Israeli security agencies released video footage, showing what they claimed was the interrogation of seven Hamas militants captured following the October 7 attack. In the videos, those interviewed claimed they were ordered to carry out atrocities against Israeli civilians. In one video, one man stated that they were given explicit instructions to kill everyone they encountered, including beheading victims and cutting off their legs. The alleged plan involved moving from home to home, from room to room, throwing grenades and killing everyone, including women and children. In one video a person whose face is blurred says that gunmen were ordered to "crush victims' heads, sever limbs, and cut off their legs". He also claimed they were given permission to rape a corpse.

Testimony of alleged acts by location

Re'im music festival and vicinity

Main article: Re'im music festival massacre

ARCCI citations

The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel cited four sources:

• Video of "the woman in the black dress"
• The Sunday Times report of Yoni Saadon's testimony
• Testimony cited in a Knesset session, and
• Sky News reports of ZAKA responders who say bodies arrived partially clothed or unclothed, some with heavy pelvic bleeding and/or genital mutilation, which ARCCI asserts align with the other testimony

Video of "the woman in black dress"

The New York Times story "Screams without Words" article reported a video showing a woman lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread and vagina exposed while her face was burned and her right hand covering her eyes. She was later identified as Gal Abdush (née Brakha).

Eden Wessely, a woman searching for a friend after the rave who says she filmed the video, told ARCCI that she had seen a cut wound on the victim's leg, which led her to believe the victim's underwear had been cut off. Mondoweiss reported that social media comments from Abdush family and friends question Wessely's story, arguing that it was Wessely's "inaccurate testimony" which "does not match the video" and her personal interpretation, and not the video itself, that launched the allegations of sexual violence. After the Times "Screams without Words" article, Wessely told media that Abdush had been raped, burned, and murdered. Wessely's Facebook account reflects far-right opinions.

Wessely told Ynet that New York Times co-authors Schwartz and Sella had pressured her into giving the paper access to her photos and videos for the purposes of serving Israeli propaganda, saying 'They called me again and again and explained how important it is to Israeli hasbara'.

Nissim Abdush, brother of Gal's husband Nagi, who was also killed, was interviewed on Channel 13 on 1 January 2024. where he repeatedly denied that Gal was raped. He said Nagi had called him at 7 AM, saying his wife was killed but never mentioned anything related to sexual assault. He reiterated that Gal had not been raped and that "the media invented it."

Miral Altar, Gal's sister, wrote on Instagram "It's clear that the dress is lifted upwards and not in its natural state, and half her head is burned because they threw a grenade at the car… At 6:51, Gal WhatsApp'ed saying 'we are at the border'…At 7 AM, my brother-in-law (Nagi) called his brother (Nissim) and said they shot Gal and she's dying. It doesn’t make any sense that in four minutes, they raped her, slaughtered her, and burned her?"

Gal's sister Tali Brakha stated on social media that the video showed no evidence of rape, nor did she feel there was any reason to suspect rape. She subsequently deleted the post, although "critics circulated images of it to assert falsely that the family had renounced the article". She later told the Times she regretted her post being used to question whether Palestinian militants had raped women, and that she had been "confused about what happened" and was trying to "protect" her sister.

Esther / Witness S / Sapir

In October 2023, Israeli police showed multiple journalists a video of a woman whom Le Parisien called "Esther" and BBC called "Witness S" describing what she claims to have seen from her hiding place near the festival: a militant bent someone over, then "Esther" understood that he was raping the victim; the militant passed her on to someone else; she was still alive and bleeding from her back; the men cut off parts of her body, sliced her breast, threw it on the street and played with it; another militant raped her, then while still penetrating her, shot her in the head, and then ejaculated.

Two months later, in December 2023, the New York Times reported testimony with very similar themes, from a witness identified as "Sapir", who claimed to have seen:

• A woman with copper-colored hair with blood running down her back and pants pushed down to her knees
• One man pulled her by the hair and forced to her bend over
• Another man who penetrated her, and plunged a knife into her back every time she flinched

Sapir also claims to have seen one militant rape a woman, and another pull out a box cutter and slice off her breast, throw it to someone else who played with it and threw it, and the breast then fell on the road.

Unlike the testimony attributed to "Esther" and "Witness S", "Sapir" also claimed that:

• One militant bent the woman over while another penetrated her
• The woman whose breast was sliced off was a second, different woman from the one raped
• The militant sliced the second woman's face specifically, not just her body generally and her breast
• The total number of Hamas militants was 100 congregating along the road passing weapons and badly wounded women to each other
• Three other women were raped in front of her while she hid
• One of the militants carried the severed heads of three more women

Knesset

A survivor told a Knesset panel her testimony recounting she saw naked girls, sliced bodies and violated girls whose pelvises were broken due to the extent of the abuse. An unnamed witness claims they found the festival vicinity an "apocalypse of bodies, girls without clothes, some missing their upper, some their lower parts".

Yoni Saadon

Survivor Yoni Saadon recounted to The Times: "they had caught a young woman near a car and she was fighting back, not allowing them to strip her. They threw her to the ground and one of the terrorists took a shovel and beheaded her and her head rolled along the ground. I see that head too".

Route 232

An unnamed man reportedly saw men in civilian clothes drag a woman out of a van in route 232 nearby, gather around her and penetrate her while she screamed, and that one of the men then killed her with a knife. Three other unnamed persons testified seeing women raped and killed there and at one other location along route 232.

Other testimony

A unnamed male witness told the BBC that he had heard what he was sure were the screams of women being raped and that dead women were raped as well.

Kibbutzim

The ARCCI Report described the second type of location of alleged acts as kibbutzim and villages in the Gaza envelope, citing 6 cases and sources:

• Unspecified "testimonies collected" in Be'eri about "bodies of women and girls who were raped, mostly in their bedrooms... in their pajamas"
• Reuters, CNN, BBC, and Times of Israel reports of ZAKA volunteers who said they found bodies of women and girls without underwear, signs of semen, and one with a knife inserted into her genital area
• Chaim Otmazgin, a ZAKA commander who told ARCCI he saw two women's bodies naked with objects penetrating their bodies
• Nira Shpak of Kfar Aza who told ARCCI she saw several bodies with genitals exposed, some with torn clothes
• Noam Mark, emergency security team member at Re'im, who told ARCCI he found three bodies of women from the festival in a house, naked, with "clear signs of severe sexual violence". ARCCI says he provided police supporting video.
• New York Times reports of at least 24 bodies with signs of sexual abuse in Be'eri and Kfar Aza

Alleged rapes at Kibbutz Be'eri

See also: Be'eri massacre

In Kibbutz Be'eri, a paramedic from the 669 Special Tactics Rescue Unit said he went house to house looking for anyone still alive after the attack and found the bodies of two teenage girls in a bedroom. He said that he had no doubt one of the teenagers was raped, but he did not know if she had died first. Two bodies of women were reportedly found with legs and hands tied to their beds, one of whose genitals were stabbed with a knife and internal organs removed.

In March 2024, The Intercept noted that Kibbutz Be'eri rejected the story of rapes of teenage sisters Y. and N. Sharabi, ages 13 and 16, taking place there that the New York Times had included in its article "Screams without Words". Kibbutz spokesperson Michal Paikin said "they were shot and were not subjected to sexual abuse." Israeli spokesman Eylon Levy connected the 669 Unit paramedic with international media outlets. In a Channel 12 interview, new Times reporter Anat Schwartz - criticized for encouraging witnesses to recount stories for the benefit of Israel - said she tried but failed to find a second witness to confirm that the girls had been sexually assaulted after the paramedic told her his story about them. This was supported by the UN special representative who stated they were "able to determine that at least two allegations of sexual violence widely repeated in the media were unfounded due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the facts gathered."

Channel 12 published an interview in late February 2024 where the girls' grandparents also contradicted the reporting by the "Screams without Words" article that the girls were sexually assaulted and found alone in a bedroom; instead the grandmother said that the girls "were just shot — nothing else had been done to them", and that the girls were "found between the 'mamad' — the house’s safe room — and the dining room", while the grandfather said that a soldier told him the girls' mother "was covering the two girls and they were shot". Earlier in October 2023, the grandmother had told BBC News that the girls were "found all cuddled together with [their mother] doing what a mother would do — holding her babies in her arms, trying to protect them at the end".

Other kibbutzim

The New York Times viewed photographs of a woman's corpse found in a kibbutz that had dozens of nails driven into her groin and thighs. It also reported testimony that women and girls were raped in Kibbutz Kfar Aza.

Camp Shura IDF base

Many of the bodies discovered in the various scenes were brought to the IDF Military Rabbinate Camp Shura, which hosts facilities for body identification.

The ARCCI Report cited the reported testimony of four: Lt. Bar-Shimon, Shari Mendes, officer Maayan, and Moshe Pinchi.

• Guardian and Ynet reports of Lt. Tamar Bar-Shimon recounting how a terrorist ordered her to remove her uniform - and that another terrorist rescued her

• New York Times "Screams without Words" which reported:
  • Shari Mendes, a volunteer at Camp Shura, having seen four women soldiers' bodies with signs of sexual violence including pelvic bleeding
  • Maayan, Shura officer and dentist, having seen 10 or more bodies of female soldiers with clear signs of sexual violence
  • Policeman Moshe Pinchi having shared a Hamas-filmed video that the IDF had recovered of two soldiers shot in the genitals

Shari Mendes

Shari Mendes, an army reservist stationed at the camp, recounted in an event at the United Nations that her team discovered female soldiers who were shot in their vagina or breasts, and reported that it appeared there was systematic genital mutilation by Hamas militants. She further stated that they found beheaded bodies or bodies with missing limbs or bodies whose faces were mutilated, with some faces shot multiple times post-mortem. According to Mendes, bodies were found with bloodied underwear. Mendes provided testimony based on her observations of the dead, conveyed in a recorded video, which the IDF verified. Mendes told the Daily Mail of a decapitated pregnant woman and her beheaded unborn child, which did not match any evidence later found. Independent research collective October 7 Fact Check claimed Mendes's story was not true.

Captain Maayan

IDF Captain Maayan who was a dentist and member of the medical forensic team identifying bodies, said that she had encountered several bodies showing signs consistent with sexual abuse, recounting "I can tell that I saw a lot of signs of abuse in the [genital region] [...] We saw broken legs, broken pelvises, bloody underwear".

In captivity in Gaza

The fourth location that the ARCCI reported sexual violence was in captivity against hostages held in the Gaza Strip, citing the testimony of three cases:

• Times of Israel-published reports that captors assaulted both male and female hostages
• Chen and Agam Goldstein, mother and daughter from Kfar Aza, former hostages, having come across three female hostages who told them that captors had sexually assaulted them
• Kan reports that Aviva Sigal another former hostage from Kfar Azaz, having seen a young woman who captors had just assaulted when taking her to the restroom, and of captors turning women and men into "puppets on a string".

One of the Israeli hostages released during the temporary truce in late November and early December 2023, recounted to The Jerusalem Post that at least three women were sexually assaulted by their Hamas captors. The Associated Press reported that an unnamed Israeli doctor who treated 110 of the released hostages said that least 10 men and women had been sexually assaulted or abused while in captivity. The released hostages underwent pregnancy tests and were screened for sexually transmitted diseases. Two Israeli doctors as well as an unnamed Israeli military official confirmed to USA Today that Israeli women in captivity underwent sexual abuse in their captivity. One of the doctors also said that "many of the 30 females from ages 12 to 48 suffered sexual assault during captivity". Another doctor said that many of the women who had witnessed sexual assaults were experiencing PTSD. The Israeli military official said "we know that female hostages were raped during their captivity under control of Hamas."

In January 2024, a video taken October 2023 re-emerged showing 4 female Israeli soldiers held hostage: Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, and Agam Berger. After this, released hostage Chen Goldstein-Almog reported having seen some of them who had told her that their captors had sexually abused them multiple times.

Notable reports

Report by Israeli rape crisis center association

In February 2024, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI) published the first comprehensive survey of the of sexual violence carried out during the attack. The 35-page report, based in part on statements from ZAKA members, suggests that the attacks were more widespread than initially believed, occurring at various locations across southern Israel and in captivity in Gaza. It concludes that in some instances, rapes were carried out in the presence of an audience, including partners, family, or friends, with the apparent intention of increasing pain, humiliation and trauma for all present. It concludes there is evidence for a "systematic, targeted sexual abuse" of women during the Hamas-led assault on southern Israel on 7 October, that ignited the war in Gaza.

ARCCI stated that the report included new testimony that it received "from professionals and confidential calls" and that "arrived at ARCCI centers".

New York Times "Screams without Words"

Main article: New York Times "Screams without Words" controversy

According to a investigation by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella in The New York Times using video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 purported victims or their families, the report identified at least seven locations where sexual assaults and mutilations of Israeli women and girls were carried out.

The Times article concluded that the alleged rapes were part of a broader pattern in which Hamas "weaponized sexual violence". It cited the evidence of 8 individuals or groups, plus a video circulated on social media, though the article did not demonstrate a link or general connection between the incidents. ZAKA volunteers did not take photographs per organizational policy and respect for the dead. Yossi Landau, head of ZAKA operations, later told the New York Times that he regrets having not collected photographic evidence. The article did not directly interview rape survivors, citing rape councilors who said that "[t]he trauma from sexual assault can be so heavy that sometimes survivors do not speak about it for years".

Questions about journalistic objectivity

In late February, 2024,, Jeremy Scahill et al. in The Intercept revealed that the Times recruited co-author Anat Schwartz, who had no prior reporting experience. Schwartz had liked several posts calling for destruction of Gaza including one calling to "turn Gaza into a slaughterhouse" and to "violate any norm on the way to victory" over Palestinian "human animals". The Times launched an investigation. Scahill concluded that Schwartz "may harbor animosity toward Palestinians… and feel conflicting pressures between being a supporter of Israel’s war effort and a Times reporter". Furthermore, Eden Wessely, who filmed Gal Abdush's ("the woman in the black dress") body, told Ynet that "Schwartz and Sella had pressured her into giving the paper access to her photos and videos for the purposes of serving Israeli propaganda. 'They called me again and again and explained how important it is to Israeli hasbara'." Schwartz told Channel 12 in January 2024, "I'm… an Israeli, but I also work for New York Times… so all the time I’m… in this place between the hammer and the anvil." In multiple visits to the Merhav Marpe center, Schwartz found no evidence of sexual violence, and frustrated, accused staff of engaging in a "conspiracy of silence.". Testimony from ZAKA's Yossi Landau, Raz Cohen and Shari Mendes (all of whom have since shown to have provided inconsistent or false testimony, see table) convinced Schwartz that the pattern of sexual violence was systematic and "weaponized", but The Intercept concluded that "the bigger scandal may be… the process that allowed (the reporting) into print, and the life-altering impact the reporting had for thousands of Palestinians whose deaths were justified by the alleged systematic sexual violence orchestrated by Hamas the paper claimed to have exposed" and that the "Times's mission (may have been) to bolster a predetermined narrative".

Criticism of testimony and fact-checking

On January 9, 2024, the report was removed from the scheduled The New York Times podcast channel, The Daily. According to Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone, the report caused turmoil within the Times due to the lack of verification of the witnesses and their testimony, inconsistencies in the testimonies (see table) and outcry from family members of Gal Abdush, four of whom asserted that her sister's rape did not take place at all, as well as complaints about how their input to the Times was mischaracterized in the article.

Accounts of sexual violence by witnesses quoted in "Screams Without Words"
Rows highlighted in pink indicate inconsistent testimony and/or witnesses accused of making up testimony

Witness	Role	Testimony in "Screams ..."	Other testimony and notes
Eden Wessely (further in this article: § Video of "the woman in black dress")	"searching for a missing friend at the site of the rave"	Took a video which the Times reviewed, showing Gal Abdush, "a woman in a black dress lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed" with her face completely charred, whom Israeli police officials believed to have been raped.	Other testimony: Gal's two sisters and one brother-in-law deny that Gal was raped. Wessely told Ynet that Times co-authors Schwartz and Sella had pressured her into giving the paper access to her photos and videos for the purposes of serving Israeli propaganda, saying 'They called me again and again and explained how important it is to Israeli hasbara'.
Sapir (further in this article: § Esther / Witness S / Sapir)	Rave attendee	Said she saw groups of heavily armed men rape and kill at least 5 women, slice off one woman's breast then throw it back and forth, and carry the severed heads of three more women.
Yura Karol	Rave attendee	Said he hid behind Sapir and saw a woman raped and killed.	Later testimony: In November 2023, Ha'aretz reported that a man, whom Ha'aretz didn't name, had been hiding behind Sapir. Told them that he hadn't seen the rape but that Sapir had told him what she had seen at the time.
Raz Cohen, Shoam Gueta	Rave attendees	Table legend: Witness reported seeing: R – rape M – murder K – knifing B – "butchering" GD – people gunned down Channel Witness Date Description R M K B GD Link NBC News Gueta Oct. 8 Saw Israelis gunned down as they tried to take cover and a woman being cut with a knife, but did not mention a rape or butchering. x ✓ ✓ x ✓ i24 Cohen Oct. 9 Did not mention having seen any rapes from the streambed. x ✓ ✓ x ✓ CBC News Cohen Oct. 10 Did not mention having seen any rapes from the streambed. x ✓ ✓ x ✓ PBS News Hour Cohen Oct. 10 Witnessed incidents both of rape then knifing of victims to death, and vice versa. ✓ ✓ ✓ x ✓ "Screams Without Words" Cohen, Gueta Dec. 28 Hid in a streambed and saw a white van from which 4 to 5 men emerged who then dragged a naked young woman across the ground, raped her, "butchered"/"slaughtered" her then killed her with a knife. ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓
4 ZAKA emergency responders		Reported discovering corpses of women with their legs spread and underwear missing, some with hands tied by rope and zipties. Jamal Waraki of ZAKA said he saw a dead woman bent over half naked with her underwear rolled down between her knees.	Note: IDF Home Front Command soldiers and volunteers from other organizations accuse ZAKA members of spreading accounts of some atrocities that never happened.
Yinon Rivlin	Rave producer	Reported finding the body of a young woman on her stomach with no pants or underwear, legs spread apart with her vagina sliced open
8 ZAKA men, 2 soldiers		Reported seeing at least 24 bodies of females naked or half naked, some mutilated, others tied up, in Be'eri and Kfar Aza	Note: IDF Home Front Command soldiers and volunteers from other organizations accuse ZAKA members of spreading accounts of some atrocities that never happened.
Unnamed Unit 669 paramedic ("Sgt. G") (further in this article: § Alleged rapes at Kibbutz Be'eri)		Reported finding the bodies of girls, 13 and 16, one with boxer shorts ripped, bruises by her groin, one with pajama pants pulled to her knees, bottom exposed, semen smeared on her back. No photos or forensic evidence were taken at the scene, as per ZAKA custom.	Other testimony: A November 18, 2023, CNN report quoted witness "G", a Unit 669 paramedic, stating that he had found 2 dead teenage girls together in a Be'eri house, one with pants pulled down and semen on her back. A similar interview with Chief Sargeant First Class "G" was broadcast on India's Republic TV. Notes: The kibbutz has denied that rape occurred Pro-Palestinian site Mondoweiss reported that upon examining the names of all the girls killed in Kibbutz Be'eri, no pair of teenagers meeting that description were found dead together. The closest match are two sisters 13 and 16 who were found separately.
Shari Mendes (further in this article: § Shari Mendes)	Shura base, reservist	Reported seeing four bodies with signs of sexual violence including blood in their pelvic areas as she prepared bodies for burial.	Note: Mendes' testimony has been brought into question because she also told the Daily Mail of a "decapitated pregnant woman" and her "beheaded unborn child" which was found to be made up or false.
Captain Maayan (further in this article: § Captain Maayan)	Shura base, medical forensic team member	Reported seeing at least 10 bodies of female soldiers with signs of sexual violence, including cuts in their vagina, underwear soaked in blood, and in one case, missing fingernails.

UN report of March 2024

On 4 March 2024, a United Nations team, led by Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten, published a report, concluding that "there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang-rape, in at least three locations": the Nova music festival and its vicinities of Road 232 and kibbutz Re'im. However, the UN team was "unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence" since their investigation was not "fully-fledged". The UN team also stated that it collected "Credible circumstantial information, which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment". The report also found “clear and convincing information” to show that Israeli hostages in Gaza had been subject to "sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment"

Other controversies

ZAKA controversy

The mostly ultra-Orthodox ZAKA volunteer paramedic and rescue group began collecting bodies immediately after the Hamas attacks, while the IDF avoided assigning soldiers with training to carefully retrieve and document human remains in post-terrorism situations. Zaka spokesman, Simcha Greeneman, said in one kibbutz he came across a dead woman with sharp objects in her vagina, including nails. However, as part of the effort to get media exposure, Zaka spread accounts of atrocities that never happened, released sensitive and graphic photos, and acted unprofessionally on the ground, often mixing up remains of multiple victims in the same bag and creating little or no documentation about the remains.

Claims of "weaponization" and "mass" rape as pro-Israeli propaganda

Pro-Palestinian news sources such as the Electronic Intifada claimed that Israel has exaggerated the claims of mass rape much as it has exaggerated particularly gruesome acts of Hamas violence on October 7. In February 2024, The Hill host Briahna Joy Gray criticized U.S. State Department assumptions without evidence that Hamas had raped female Israeli hostages, and in particular criticized the characterization of the sexual violence as "mass rape" rather than individual acts, or "weaponization of rape" as being Israeli war propaganda. American journalist Max Blumenthal has also claimed that Israel was inventing stories of mass rape on October 7. The Jewish News Syndicate complained that the Washington Post did not present mass rape on October 7 as a fact. Some questioning of the sexual violence as "mass rape" or systematic weaponization of rape was expressed during criticism of the reliability and fact checking done for the New York Times article "'Screams Without Words': How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7", as noted above.

Responses

United Nations and human rights groups

The United Nations, particularly the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), were criticized by Jewish and Israeli media and advocates for not condemning rapes of Israeli women after being presented with evidence and witness testimonies. Israel condemned the UN for its response. Israeli human rights group, Physicians for Human Rights Israel, called for the International Criminal Court to investigate the sexual violence accusations. UN special rapporteur Reem Alsalem was criticized by Claire Waxman, London's Victims' Commissioner, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, as she did not speak out on reports of sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October attack on Israel against Israeli women during and following the Hamas-led attack, reportedly labeling accounts of sexual violence as "disinformation".

The Israeli First Lady, Michal Herzog, called the response of international organizations such as UN Women an "inconceivable and unforgivable silence". UN Women briefly condemned Hamas in a post, but deleted the post shortly after. Jewish and Israeli media and advocacy organizations criticized UN Women and the #MeToo movement, saying they did not condemn the violence against women that took place during the October 7 attack. In response to UN Women, US- and Israel-based activists created the slogan "#MeToo Unless You're A Jew". Israeli law professor Cochav Elkayam Levy told The New York Times that she sent a letter signed by dozens of scholars to UN Women on November 2, calling for condemnation of sexual violence during the attack; she said she did not receive a response. A bipartisan group of more than 80 members of the US congress said the response of UN Women was "woefully unsatisfactory and consistent with the UN's longstanding bias against Israel".

On 25 November in Paris, a group of about 200 protestors attempted to join the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women march. Some carried Israeli flags and signs "denounc[ing] the deafening silence of feminist groups". The group was "effectively barred from joining the march" by pro-Palestine activists; march organizers later released a statement expressing "unambiguous condemnation of the sexual and sexist crimes, rapes and femicides committed by Hamas". On December 1, UN Women stated "We unequivocally condemn the brutal attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October". Israeli politician Zehava Galon criticized the organization, writing that "the UN women's organization took almost two months... to issue a pale condemnation." On December 4, human rights' organizations, including Jewish ones as well as their supporters, protested in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York, some dressed in only their underwear and with synthetic blood smeared on their bodies. A former lawmaker Carolyn Maloney stated: "We're here supporting Israeli women who were brutally raped. They deserve the support of other women. Any other attack on women would be treated as a crime."

On November 28, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that there were numerous accounts of sexual violence during the October 7 attack; he said the incidents "must be vigorously investigated and prosecuted". A UN commission of inquiry investigating war crimes on both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict will include a focus on instances of sexual violence by Hamas. Israel's Permanent Representative to the UN, Gilad Erdan, accused the commission of antisemitism and stated that Israel will not cooperate with it. English journalist Gaby Hinsliff criticized the UN's slow response. Navi Pillay, who chairs the UN inquiry, rejected claims that the UN had delayed acknowledging the sexual violence and said that, despite Israel not cooperating, her team could still take evidence from survivors and witnesses outside of the country: "All they [Israel] have to do is let us in," she told the BBC.

On 8 January 2024, two U.N. experts on torture and on extrajudicial executions demanded accountability for sexual violence against Israeli civilians by Hamas. They said that a substantial body of evidence supported the occurrence of rapes and genital mutilation, indicating potential crimes against humanity. On 16 January, Guterres again stated the accounts must be "rigorously investigated and prosecuted". Israel responded by forbidding doctors to speak to the UN commission investigating 7 October, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat calling the UN commission "an anti-Israeli and antisemitic body".

On January 26, 2024, it was reported that the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC), Pramila Patten, is scheduled to visit Israel to investigate acts of rape committed by Hamas. During her week-long visit, Patten and her team will review raw footage from October 7, meet with released captives from Gaza, and hear their testimonies. Patten will visit various locations, including the Nova festival site in Re'im, Gaza border communities, and the military base in Nahal Oz, to gain insights into sexual crimes committed by Hamas, and findings were submitted to the UN Secretary-General and the Security Council in March.

Hamas

See also: Israel–Hamas war hostage crisis § Hostage accounts, and Denial of the 7 October attacks

Hamas officials, including Basem Naim, denied the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, citing Islamic principles that forbid any sexual relationship outside of marriage. Hamas accused Western media of bias and said the reports of sexual violence demonized Palestinian resistance. They also demanded that The New York Times apologize following a report on the matter. Hamas said that any sexual violence that occurred should be blamed on other militants that breached the Israel-Gaza border on October 7.

Naim stated that the New York Times report on sexual violence lacked conclusive evidence, argued that testimonies from Israeli women contradict the report, and cited Hamas's alleged good treatment of female hostages in Gaza Strip. Basem Naim also remarked that the operation on October 7th was "very short", adding that Hamas' militants only had enough time to complete their mission "to crush the enemy's military sites".

International responses

The Maltese, Spanish and Panama ambassadors to Israel condemned the actions of Hamas in a 27 November 2023 Knesset panel. The Canadian ambassador in the same panel lamented the quiet response to actions against Israeli women in the same panel.

The director of the University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre in Canada was fired after she signed a letter questioning the rape reports. After being criticized, student newspaper Yale Daily News issued an apology for issuing editors' notes that challenged statements rapes and beheadings during the October 7 attack, though later it was shown that the claims of beheading were false.

In France, Gender equality minister Bérangère Couillard criticized French Women rights' organization for failing to advocate for universal values, warning them that their funding from the state was conditional. The organizers of the 25 November Paris march which 80,000 attended stated: "unambiguous condemnation of the sexual and sexist crimes, rapes and femicides committed by Hamas".

United States

In a speech on October 10, US president Joe Biden condemned Hamas, stating that the events represented "pure, unadulterated evil". Former US foreign secretary Hillary Clinton condemned the use of rape in war as a crime against humanity. Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, founder of Lean In, a women's rights and advancement group also condemned the rape as a crime against humanity and attacked UN silence as dangerous. Sandberg also described Hamas' rape of women as a weapon of war.

On December 4, spokesperson for the United States Department of State Matthew Miller said that the Biden administration had not made an explicit condemnation of rape on October 7 because they had not conducted an independent assessment, and not because they doubted the reports. On December 5, Joe Biden called for global condemnation of "the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation", calling the events "horrific". Five days later, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the sexual violence inflicted by Hamas "almost beyond human description or beyond our capacity to digest", and criticized International organizations such as UN Women for being too slow to condemn them.

On December 12, 33 US Democratic and Republican senators demanded in a letter to the UN secretary general that the UN begin investigating sexual and gender based crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. They further requested the United Nations begin collecting testimonies from survivors and witnesses.

See also

• Sexual and gender-based violence in 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza
• Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel
• War crimes in the 2023 Israel–Hamas war
• Bearing Witness (2023 film)
• Genocidal rape

Further reading

• Chotiner, Isaac (10 December 2023). "How Hamas Used Sexual Violence on October 7th". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 11 December 2023.