A Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist captured in Gaza admitted during questioning that he participated in the massacre on October 7 and that his squad committed rape and then murdered victims during the massacre, KAN reported on Thursday.
Serious sexual offenses were part of the method Hamas and other terrorist groups utilized in the massacre on October 7. Lahav 433, Israel’s top national police unit, collected evidence of dozens of cases of sexual offenses and sexual abuse from investigations of the terrorists and from the collection of survivor testimonies.
A survivor of the massacre recently testified to the police about a rape she saw with her own eyes, and her testimony was verified by another survivor who was close to her.
“I understand that he raped her, then they gave her to someone else. She was alive and finally he shot her,” said the survivor. Some of the terrorists said in their investigation that they received permission to abuse corpses, in order to create fear in Israeli society.
On Channel 11, testimonies were revealed that were provided to the Zman Emet (Real Time) show – two witnesses who saw and heard the atrocities and decided to speak about it now for the first time and openly. One of them, Raz, a discharged officer who participated in the Nova festival in Re’im, said: “A white car arrived and five terrorists exited out of it. They stood in a semi-circle around her, grabbing her by force so she wouldn’t move. It happened 30 or 40 meters from us. There was a lot of movement…he raped her. I look and see that the girl is no longer moving, but the terrorist still continues to rape her. It was impossible to help her. I couldn’t do anything. I wish I had a weapon and I could help,” he said.
After Cohen’s appearance on Channel 11, he gave evidence to the police, becoming the first witness to openly describe the acts of rape he witnessed on October 7.
The New York Times publishes evidence of Hamas sexual violence
The same day as the KAN reported was published, a separate investigation by The New York Times was published that described in detail how Hamas weaponized sexual violence on October 7, with details showing “a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality against women in the attacks on Israel,” according to the report. The NYT investigation was reportedly two months in the making.
Video evidence verified by the Times included Gal Abdush, “a woman in a black dress lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed” with her face burnt beyond recognition. The Times also sourced Israeli police officials saying they believed that Abdush was raped.
New details by the Times showed that the attacks on women were part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on October 7, and were not “isolated events.” The investigation utilized photographs, GPS data, video footage from interviews and mobile phones, and interviews with more than 150 people. Interviews were conducted with witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors.
The investigation showed seven locations where Israeli women were raped or mutilated. The Times received testimony from four witnesses describing in graphic detail seeing the rape and murder of women along Highway 232 near Gaza, which is the same highway where Abdush’s half-naked body was found.
Interviews with soldiers and medics revealed the discovery of more than 30 bodies of women near the Nova music festival and in two kibbutzim, where, like in the case of Abdush, their clothes were off, their legs were spread and they had signs of abuse in their genital areas. Israeli military told the Times about two Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who were reportedly shot directly in their vaginas.
Lahav 433 have not yet put together a number on how many women were raped on October 7, stating that most are dead and therefore they will never know.
The report noted that many dead bodies from October 7 were buried as quickly as possible, and so many weren’t examined.
Another witness of the Hamas’s sexual violence is Sapir, 24, who attended the Nova festival and was shot in the back during the Hamas attacks. She recounted seeing groups of armed gunmen rape and kill at least five women. Sapir told the Times that “she was hiding under the low branches of a bushy tamarisk tree, just off Route 232.”
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