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Sheryl Sandberg joins Jewish women in calling out lack of concern about sexual assault of Israelis
(JTA) — In a world divided over the Israel-Hamas war, Sheryl Sandberg — the former Meta COO and author of “Lean In,” the bestselling book about women’s equity in the workforce — offered up an idea that she thought could bring everyone together.
“No matter which marches you are attending — or if you are attending none at all; no matter which flag you are flying — or if you are flying none at all; no matter what religion you practice — or if you practice none at all, there is one opinion that everyone can agree on: Rape should never be used as an act of war,” she wrote on Monday in a graphic and emotional op-ed for CNN. Sandberg posted a video to Instagram on Monday with a similar message.
That Sandberg felt the need to make the argument reflects the simmering resentment felt by many Israeli and Jewish advocates over widespread skepticism or even rejection of claims that Hamas terrorists raped Israeli women during their assault on Israel on Oct. 7. The response she got on social media — including on the platforms she helped create — underscored their anxiety.
“[A]nd so where’s the evidence?” reads the most-liked reply on Instagram which, alongside Facebook, is part of Meta. (Sandberg left the company last year after 14 years.)
Whether women were raped during the Hamas assault has been debated since the attack occurred, when video emerged of Hamas terrorists bundling an Israeli woman with what appeared to be blood on her pants into a vehicle in Gaza. Since then, Israeli police, military investigators and emergency responders have gathered testimony from people who witnessed sexual assault on Oct. 7 and documented evidence of assaults on the bodies of some who died.
Israeli police said they have “multiple witnesses for several cases” of sexual abuse, but did not disclose the number of witness testimonies or active sexual assault cases being investigated, the Times of Israel reported. Police also have video evidence, testimony from interrogations, and photographs of victims’ bodies that suggest sexual assault took place on Oct. 7, according to the report.
Yet six years after the #MeToo movement aimed to change the global conversation about believing women, some say the silence — or worse, open disbelief — about what happened to Israeli women suggests that progress has been uneven.
“It was not called out to the extent it should have been,” Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council for Jewish Women, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And organizations that have long spoken out against sexual assault and against war crimes seem to have been comfortable being silent as this happened to Israeli women.”
The Me Too International movement in its initial statement on the war on Nov. 13 said that the organization “recognizes that sexual violence often functions as a weapon of war and imperialism” and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, without mentioning the sexual violence that had occurred in Israel. A clarifying statement sent out two days later specifically mentioned the sexual violence experienced by Israeli women in October.
“We received some feedback from survivors asking for clarity about our statement,” the updated MeToo statement said. “We stand unequivocally with ALL survivors of sexual violence in this moment, including Israeli women who have given horrific accounts of gender-based violence in the last month.”
Some are reserving particular outrage for UN Women, the United Nations’ women’s organization that has issued multiple statements and reports about the state of Palestinian women and children in Gaza since Oct. 7, but has not issued any reports about sexual violence against Israeli women during that time.
“In their silence, these organizations have rendered themselves irrelevant,” Rotem Izak, an Israeli journalist at Yediot Ahronot and Ynet, wrote in an essay condemning UN Women for staying silent on sexual violence perpetrated against Israelis.
“Not because they shouted the cry of the Gazan women who pay with their bodies and lives for the deeds of Hamas. This is a fact; a painful fact,” Izak said. “However, ignoring the crimes of October 7 that led to this terrible war is an additional form of violence.”
Late last month, NCJW and more than 140 other women’s groups also called on UN Women to condemn the Hamas attack and “do everything in their power to expose and recognize these atrocious and horrific acts of violence against women and girls and to bring the release of all hostages immediately.”
Katz said it had been painful just to make the ask.
“We shouldn’t have to convince people who claim to be our friends and allies that raping Israelis is wrong,” she added. “Using rape as a tool of war is something that we should all agree is bad. The end, full stop. The fact that the United Nations and UN Women haven’t been able to say that is egregious.”
Entrepreneurs Danielle Ofek and Nataly Livski launched a petition last week that has so far collected a quarter-million signatures criticizing UN Women. Called “#MeToo_UNless_UR_A_Jew,” the campaign seeks to provide a voice for the women still held hostage or missing in Gaza. The associated hashtag has also trended on X, formerly known as Twitter.
While the UN group has not addressed the rape allegations, others have gone further and openly cast doubt on them. In Canada, a letter calling on a political leaders to stop broadcasting “the repeated and unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence” drew thousands of signatories. One of them was the head of a campus sexual assault center who was subsequently fired.
Sandberg, who is Jewish and had previously expressed pain over Oct. 7 and its aftermath, said her decision to make the video statement on Instagram was fueled by understanding just how widespread such dismissal had become.
“We have come so far in believing survivors of rape and assault in so many situations, yet this time, many are ignoring the stories that these bodies tell us about how these women spent the last moments of their lives,” Sandberg wrote in the CNN op-ed. “Not loudly condemning the rapes of October 7 — or any rapes — is a massive step backward for the women — and men — of the world. The ground gained was hard-fought and must not be lost.”
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The post Sheryl Sandberg joins Jewish women in calling out lack of concern about sexual assault of Israelis appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Former Columbia University President Appointed as UK Economic Adviser
Columbia University administrators and faculty, led by President Minouche Shafik, testified before the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, 2024. Photo: Jack Gruber/Reuters Connect
i24 News – British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has named Minouche Shafik, former president of Columbia University, as his chief economic adviser at Downing Street, a move aimed at stabilizing the country’s fragile economy and averting a potential budget crisis.
Shafik, an economist of Egyptian origin with dual British and American nationality, has held senior roles at the Bank of England, the IMF, and the World Bank.
She later led the London School of Economics and was elevated to the House of Lords in 2020.
Her tenure in the United States was more turbulent. Shafik stepped down as president of Columbia University in 2024 after just a year in office, amid fierce criticism over her handling of pro-Palestinian protests following the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza.
US officials accused her of failing to confront antisemitism on campus, while students and faculty condemned her decision to call in police to dismantle protest encampments.
Since returning to Britain, Shafik has played an active role in policy and cultural institutions. She advised Foreign Secretary David Lammy on international aid reform, has chaired the Victoria & Albert Museum since January, and led the “Economy 2030” inquiry for the Resolution Foundation, where she argued for reforms to the UK’s system of wealth taxation.
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Israel Mulls West Bank Annexation in Response to Moves to Recognize Palestine
The Jordan Valley. Photo: Юкатан via Wikimedia Commons.
Israel is considering annexation in the West Bank as a possible response to France and other countries recognizing a Palestinian state, according to three Israeli officials and the idea will be discussed further on Sunday, another official said.
Extension of Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank – de facto annexation of land captured in the 1967 Middle East war – was on the agenda for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet meeting late on Sunday that is expected to focus on the Gaza war, a member of the small circle of ministers said.
It is unclear where precisely any such measure would be applied and when, whether only in Israeli settlements or some of them, or in specific areas of the West Bank like the Jordan Valley and whether any concrete steps, which would likely entail a lengthy legislative process, would follow discussions.
Any step toward annexation in the West Bank would likely draw widespread condemnation from the Palestinians, who seek the territory for a future state, as well as Arab and Western countries. It is unclear where US President Donald Trump stands on the matter. The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar did not respond to a request for comment on whether Saar had discussed the move with his US counterpart Marco Rubio during his visit to Washington last week.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the prime minister supports annexation and if so, where.
A past pledge by Netanyahu to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley was scrapped in 2020 in favor of normalizing ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Abraham Accords brokered by Trump in his first term in office.
The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The United States said on Friday it would not allow Abbas to travel to New York for the United Nations gathering of world leaders, where several US allies are set to recognize Palestine as a state.
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Israel Pounds Gaza City Suburbs, Netanyahu to Convene Security Cabinet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City overnight from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet was set on Sunday to discuss a plan to seize the city.
Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighborhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and on Sunday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city.
The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone.”
“They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan.
An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security cabinet will convene on Sunday evening to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion.
A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in.
HAMAS SPOKESPERSON TARGETED
Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israeli forces had targeted Abu Ubaida, the spokesperson of Hamas’ armed wing. Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Abu Ubaida was killed. Two Hamas officials contacted by Reuters did not respond to requests for comment.
Gaza health authorities said 15 people, including five children, were killed in the attack on a residential building in the heart of Gaza City.
Abu Ubaida, also known as Hozayfa Al-Khalout, is a well-known figure to Palestinians and Israelis alike, close to Hamas’ top military leaders and in charge of delivering the group’s messages, often via video, for around two decades, delivering statements while wearing a red keffiyeh that concealed his face.
The US targeted him with sanctions in April 2024, accusing him of leading the “cyber influence department” of al-Qassam Brigades.
In his last statement on Friday, he warned that the planned Israeli offensive on Gaza City would endanger the hostages.
On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the enclave is equipped to absorb, with shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies.
“People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others, including myself, didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighborhood.
Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are presently in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave.
Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks.