EPAHamas used sexual violence as a “part of a intentional genocide strategy” during an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, accusing a new report for justice by an all-women group of Israeli legal and gender experts.
The Dina Project says that the report is based on the review of evidence, including the first testimony of accounts ranging from rape and 15 former hostages in Gaza as well as witnesses to sexual attacks.
It suggests that the group “describes these crimes as a legal blueprint to prosecute, even when direct behavior for individual criminals is impossible”.
Hamas has refused to abuse sexual violence against women or women hostages.
However, the United Nations Mission concluded in March 2024 that sexual violence related to conflict during the 7 October attack at several places including rape and gang rape was “appropriate basis”, and that “confident information” was subject to sexual violence, including rape and sexual torture.
And before he was murdered by Israel, Three top Hamas leaders were also accused by the prosecutor of crime against the humanity and other forms of sexual violence by the International Criminal Court prosecutor.Apart from murder, destruction and torture.
On 7 October, hundreds of Hamas members and allid Palestinian armed groups attacked Southern Israel, where they killed around 1,200 people and held 251 others hostage.
Israel replied by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 57,500 people have been killed, according to the Hamas-Interested Health Ministry of the region.
Warning: Graphic details of rape and sexual violence include
The Dina project was started after 7 October to do justice for the victims of sexual violence. It was founded by a legal scholar Ruth Hath Haiper-Kadar, Advocate and former Chief Military Prosecutor Sharon Zaggi-Pinhas, and former Judge and Deputy Attorney General Nawa Ben-Ya.
it says that Report, published on Tuesday“It establishes that Hamas used sexual violence as part of a genocide scheme and a strategic weapon with the goal of terrorizing and inhuman to the Israeli society.”
It “makes a passage for victims in the 7 October attack and the victims in other conflict areas for the victims”, according to the group.
Authors say they reviewed large quantities of sources, from social media posts to recorded testimony and visual evidence and audio evidence.
Report – who does not identify the victims, but mentions some of them – on October 7, a woman of the attack on the Nova Music Festival, a woman, told members of the Dina Project that she was subject to the attempt to rape and sexual harassment.
According to the report, one of the 15 former hostages stated that he was forced to perform a sexual act, which was before sexual abuse and oral and physical sexual harassment. He also said that he forced nudity – an experience that was also reported by six other hostages.
Almost all the hostages reported oral and some physical harassment, including “unwanted physical contact in private parts”, reported in the report, while six said that they also faced forcibly hazards.
Two of the hostages said that they were subject to nudity and physical abuse when they were naked, even one with one also recalled all the hair shaving, according to the report.
Dina Project says that the accounts of people who have seen or listened to the incidents of sexual violence have shown that such crimes were “broad and organized” on 7 October.
According to the report, five witnesses reported at least four separate cases of gang rape; Seven reported at least eight other different cases of rape or severe sexual attacks, some of them in captivity; Five reported at least three different cases of sexual attacks, some in captivity; And three reported three separate cases of mutation.
The report stated that nine of those cases related to Nova Music Festival, two from Nahl Oz Military Base, one route from 232 roads, and for the incidents of imprisonment in four Gaza, the report states.
Twenty -seven respondents meanwhile, meanwhile, described dozens of cases, showing “clear indications of sexual violence at six places”, reports said – Nova Festival, Route 232, and Kibutzim of Berry, Alumim, Nahl Oz and Reim.
The report also stated that “most of the victims were permanently silent”, as they were either killed on October 7 or were very shocked to talk.
In response, the author provides that “the first global legal blueprint describes as a weapon of war, ways to prosecute sexual violence – even when evidence is dirt, remains, and individual criminals cannot be tied to individual acts”.
This involves a clear structure to classify the information based on events and its clear value, and a legal structure to establish a criminal responsibility for atrocities committed during mass attacks, even when a person did not personally do not do every specific task or know about his commission by someone.
The report concludes by saying that justice is necessary not only for individual victims but also to confirm widespread principles: sexual violence in conflict is a serious violation of international law, that criminals will be held accountable, and that the international community will not allow such crimes to commit to committing impure “.
