Israeli experts say Hamas uses sexual violence as part of the genocide strategy
Hamas has used sexual violence as part of a “willful genocide strategy” in the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The Dinah project said the report is based on a review of evidence, including first-hand testimony from survivors attempting to rape and 15 former hostages in Gaza, as well as accounts of witnesses to sexual assault.
It lists what the group says is “even if it is impossible to directly attribute to individual perpetrators.”
Hamas denies that its troops have caused sexual violence against women or abused women.
However, a UN mandate concluded in March 2024 that there were “reasonable reasons” to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during an October 7 attack at multiple locations, including rape and gang rape, and that “convincing information” that hostages have been subjected to sexual violence, including sexual violence, including rape and sexual torture.
Prior to their assassination by Israel, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court also charged three top Hamas leaders with crimes against humanity and other forms of sexual violence, in addition to murder, extermination and torture.
On October 7, hundreds of members of Hamas and Allied Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel, where they killed about 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
According to the Hamas-Operation Health Ministry in the region, Israel's response was to launch a military campaign in Gaza, where more than 57,500 people were killed.
Warning: Graphic descriptions containing rape and sexual violence
The Dinah project was launched after October 7 to seek justice for victims of sexual violence. It was founded by legal scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddar, attorney and former chief military prosecutor Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, and former judge and deputy attorney general Nava Ben-Or.
It said the report was published Tuesday, “determined Hamas to use sexual violence as a tactical weapon as part of a genocide plan to intimidate and dehumanize Israeli society.”
The group said it also “created avenues of justice for victims of the October 7 attack and had the potential to establish justice for victims in other conflict areas.”
The authors said they reviewed a large number of resources, from social media posts to recorded testimony, as well as forensic evidence as well as visual and audio evidence.
The report – did not identify the victims, but quoted some of the named reports.
According to the report, one of 15 former hostages said she was forced to have sexual acts, which were previously sexual abuse, verbal and physical harassment. She also said she endured forced nude – and six other hostages reported the experience.
Almost all hostages reported verbal and some physical harassment, including “unnecessary physical contact in private parts,” while six people said they were also threatened with forced marriages.
Two of the hostages said the naked man was forced to nude and physically abused while exposed, and one of them also narrated all of his body shavings, the report said.
The Dinah project said the accounts of people who saw or heard of sexual violence showed that the crime was “widespread and systematic” on October 7.
According to the report, five witnesses reported at least four gang rape cases. Seven reports said at least eight separate cases of rape or serious sexual assault, some of which were imprisoned. Five reported at least three separate cases of sexual assault, some of which were imprisoned. Three reported three separate cases of dismemberment.
Nine of the cases related to the Nova Festival, two were linked to military bases in Nahar Greene State, one of which was Highway 232, and four were incidents in the imprisonment in Gaza, the report said.
Twenty-seven emergency responders described dozens of cases showing “signs of sexual violence at six locations”, the report said.
The report also said that “most of the victims are permanently silent” because they were killed on October 7 or were either injured and unable to talk.
In response, the authors provide what they call “the first global legal blueprint that explains how sexual violence is prosecuted as a weapon of war – even if the evidence is messy and survivors disappear, individual perpetrators cannot be associated with personal behavior”.
This includes an evidence framework to categorize based on its distance from the incident and its value of evidence, and a legal framework to establish a legal framework for criminal liability for atrocities during a mass attack, even if one does not personally assume each particular act or knows of the committee of others.
The report concluded that justice is not only crucial to individual victims, but also to identify the broader principle: sexual violence in conflict is a serious violation of international law, the perpetrator will be held accountable, and the international community will not allow such offenders to commit crimes that are guilty and unjust”.
