Kochi: An Israeli women’s group has accused
Hamas of using sexual violence as “part of a deliberate genocidal strategy” during the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, the BBC reported.
The report of the legal and gender experts called Dinah Project is based on a review of evidence including first-hand testimony from a survivor of an attempted rape and 15 former hostages held in Gaza, as well as accounts from witnesses to sexual assaults.
It lays out what the group describes as “a legal blueprint for prosecuting these crimes, even when direct attribution to individual perpetrators is impossible”.
Hamas has denied the allegations.
A UN mission concluded in March 2024 that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the October 7 attack in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape, and that there was “convincing information” that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualised torture.
Three top Hamas leaders were also accused by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor of the crimes against humanity of rape and other forms of sexual violence, in addition to murder, extermination and torture.
Hundreds of members of Hamas and allied Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel, where they killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage on October 7.
Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, in which over 57,500 people were killed, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The Dinah Project was launched after the October 7 to pursue justice for victims of sexual violence.
A female survivor of the attack on the Nova music festival on 7 October told members of the Dinah Project that she was subjected to an attempted rape and sexual assault.
According to the report, one of the 15 former hostages said she was forced to perform a sexual act, which was preceded by sexual abuse and verbal and physical sexual harassment.
She also said she endured forced nudity – an experience which was reported by six other hostages as well.
Almost all of the hostages reported verbal and some physical harassment, including “unwanted physical contact in private parts”, the report said.
Six of them said they also faced threats of forced marriage.
Two men among the hostages said they were subjected to forced nudity and physical abuse.
The Dinah Project says the accounts from people who saw or heard incidents of sexual violence showed that such crimes were “widespread and systematic” on 7 October.
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