Hamas said Monday it “rejects” accusations that the Palestinian Islamist movement committed “rape” and sexual violence during its deadly October 7 attack in Israel, calling them “lies.”
On October 7, Hamas commandos killed 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. In addition, 240 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip, of whom 137 are still being held hostage, according to the Israeli army.
In retaliation, the Israeli army immediately launched bombings on the Gaza Strip – interrupted during a week of truce – which have so far caused, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health in Gaza, 15,899 deaths, or 70%. women and Palestinians under the age of 18.
The Israeli police also claim to be investigating possible sexual violence committed on October 7, including gang rape and mutilation of corpses.
Investigators have so far collected “more than 1,500 shocking and distressing testimonies,” a police officer told the Israeli Parliament last week, referring to “girls stripped naked above and below the waist” and reporting rape testimony. collective, mutilation and murder of a young woman.
She cited another witness reporting gunshot wounds to the “genitals, abdomen, legs and buttocks […]cut breasts or bearing gunshot wounds”, while rescuers reported the body of a woman “bleeding from the genital areas”.
But, Cochav Elkayam Levy, president of the parliamentary commission on crimes committed against women on October 7, clarified in November, “the vast majority of victims of the rapes and other sexual assaults of October 7 were murdered and will never be able to testify.”
In its statement, Hamas criticizes “Zionist campaigns that promote lies and baseless allegations to demonize the Palestinian resistance.”
These “lies”, he continues, are the latest in “a series”, citing in particular “the lie according to which the al-Chifa hospital was used for military purposes”, which the Israeli army assures but which Hamas denies.
UN Women told AFP that it was “aware of the concerns” in Israel and had met with Israeli women’s organizations to “listen to their horrific stories of what happened on October 7” and “help them as much as possible to expose gender-based atrocities, including sexual violence.”