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New Report Exposes Hamas’ ‘Tactical Use of Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War’ During Oct. 7 Attacks
The personal belongings of festival-goers are seen at the site of an attack on the Nova Festival by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, Oct. 12, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
A report released by Israeli NGO The Dinah Project on Tuesday exposes new evidence and details about the extent of the horrific sexual violence carried out by Hamas-led terrorists during their deadly rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Dinah Project, headed by a team of leading legal and gender experts, was established to gain recognition and justice for victims and survivors of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) suffered during the Oct. 7 attacks or, later, as Hamas hostages in Gaza.
The Dinah Project said the goal of Tuesday’s 80-page report — titled “A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond” — is to expose that the violent sexual attacks perpetrated on Oct. 7 constitute crimes against humanity, and to ensure that the “tactical use of sexual violence by Hamas as a weapon of war receives the international condemnation and response it demands.”
The report, which has been compiled into a book, offers a legal framework on prosecuting such crimes and how the perpetrators should be held accountable. It is the “most comprehensive assessment to date” of the sexual violence that occurred both during the attack and, after, against hostages in captivity, according to The Dinah Project.
The report concluded that Hamas engaged in intentional, widespread and systematic sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attack, with “recurring patterns” across at least six different locations: the Nova music festival, Route 232, Nahal Oz military base, and Kibbutzim Re’im, Nir Oz, and Kfar Aza. Victims of sexual violence were found partially or fully naked with their hands tied, often to structures like trees or poles. Evidence showed instances of gang-rape followed by execution, genital mutilation, and public humiliation.
Most of the rape victims were murdered during or right after the Oct. 7 attack. “There was more than one report of continuous sexual assault after the victim was no longer alive,” according to the report.
The Dinah Project spoke with former Hamas hostages who talked about experiencing sexual violence during captivity. Multiple ex-hostages reported forced nudity, physical and verbal sexual harassment, sexual assaults, and threats of forced marriage. “Most victims were permanently silenced — either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk,” said the Israeli NGO.
Hamas “used sexual violence as a tactical weapon, as part of a genocidal scheme and with the goal of terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society,” the report stated.
The report’s findings are based on first-hand survivor testimonies, including one survivor who opened up about attempted rape on Oct. 7, and 15 returned hostages who experienced or witnessed sexual violence. Data shared in the report is also based on at least 17 witnesses who described more than 15 separate incidents of sexual assault; testimonies from 27 first responders who saw clear signs of sexual violence; and morgue attendants who described indicators of sexual violence on dead bodies backed by photographic evidence.
The report detailed violent and graphic incidents of sexual violence including: “bodies with objects inserted into their private parts, bodies with signs of shooting or other mutilations in the area of the genitalia, bodies of naked women cuffed onto trees, bodies of half-naked or fully naked women, some lying with their genitalia exposed and legs spread.”
Researchers admitted facing some difficulty creating the report since “most victims were murdered; survivors and released captives may be too traumatized to come forward and testify against their abusers; and forensic evidence required for criminal convictions is difficult to obtain in crime scenes that remain war zones.”
These obstacles posed “profound challenges for establishing accountability and achieving justice,” they wrote.
The report was presented on Tuesday to Israel’s First Lady Michal Herzog. “This is not freedom fighting,” she said of Hamas’ acts of sexual violence during the Oct. 7 attacks. “This is sheer violence.”
Sexual violence “should not be accepted as a tool of war in any conflict around the world,” she declared.
“The report lays out clear legal evidence: Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon of war,” the First Lady added in a message shared on the X account of her husband, Israeli President Isaac Herzog. “As a woman, a mother, and an Israeli, I read it with a broken heart. But silence, denial, and deflection must end—replaced by truth, justice, and recognition: these are crimes against humanity. To the survivors, to the hostages still suffering in Gaza: We see you. We hear you. We will not stop until justice is done—and every last one of you is home.”
Under international law, CRSV is, according to the United Nations, a war crime, a crime against humanity, a crime of torture, and can be a constitutive act of genocide.
“A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond” was authored by The Dinah Project’s founding members, Prof. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari and Col. Res. Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, and retired judge Nava Ben-Or. Nurit Jacobs-Yinon, a member of The Dinah Project, was the visual editor of the report.
“We released this book because silence protects perpetrators,” Jacobs Yinon told The Algemeiner on Wednesday. “For too long, the sexual violence committed on October 7 has been denied, downplayed, or ignored. Exposing these crimes, and providing the legal tools to prosecute them, is essential not only for justice in Israel but for any conflict where sexual violence is used as a weapon of war.”
“I wrestled with how to present such painful truths in a way that demands recognition and justice, without retraumatizing survivors or readers,” she added. “We chose powerful, emotional imagery … not to shock, but to create space for empathy and truth. This is about exposing the crimes of October 7 and ensuring the world cannot look away.”
The Dinah Project operates under the umbrella of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women at Bar-Ilan University.
The post New Report Exposes Hamas’ ‘Tactical Use of Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War’ During Oct. 7 Attacks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.