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Hamas Raped and Massacred Israeli Women; Is There a Way to Hold Them Legally Accountable?
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
As a former Special Victims Prosecutor, the plight of victims of sexual violence is one that I am both familiar with and sensitive to. The trauma suffered by these victims is some of the worst that a human being can endure.
The phrase “believe women” became a rallying cry during the #MeToo movement, and on the left. So the deafening silence from those quarters about the sexually violent crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, has been particularly disappointing.
The Geneva Convention specifies that “women shall be especially protected against any attack on their honor, in particular against rape or any form of indecent assault.”
The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court states that “rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, or any other form of sexual violence” is a crime against humanity.
Yet, ironically, November 25 is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, when UN Women launches an annual UN-wide campaign — and there is not a whisper of condemnation emanating from the hallowed halls of the UN about the hideous sexual violence committed by Hamas against Israeli women. This, despite mounting evidence that rape was systematically used against Israeli women as a tool of terror on October 7.
A glossary of translated phrases from Arabic to Hebrew was recovered from Hamas terrorists that included instructions such as “Take your pants off.” There is a disturbing video from October 7 of a young Israeli girl being dragged by her hair with her hands bound behind her back in Gaza. Her crotch area is visibly stained with blood. A harrowing account was just released by Israeli police of a witness who watched as Hamas terrorists gang raped a woman before shooting her in the head. There are numerous accounts of Israeli girls and women being found murdered, with their pants and undergarments completely removed.
In implementing rape as a tool for terror, Hamas committed war crimes.
What recourse exists to prosecute Hamas for these crimes? I spoke with George P. Fletcher, the Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence at Columbia Law School and preeminent expert in international criminal law about this prospect.
“There is little doubt that Hamas has committed innumerable war crimes,” Professor Fletcher said. “Rape is considered a crime against humanity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and it violates the Geneva Conventions. It is related to genocide because it changes the population by producing offspring.”
Aside from the rape abuses, Hamas’ “charter would be Exhibit A in a prosecution for genocide” Professor Fletcher said, referencing Article 7 of Hamas’ 1988 charter, which calls for the killing of Jews.
Given its anti-Israel bias, and that the ICC has tried to haul Israelis into court under trumped up charges, going to the ICC for justice seems like a horrible mistake. Israel says it will try Hamas war criminals; but what can be done elsewhere?
Professor Fletcher offered a creative and promising alternative to the ICC: the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). While it doesn’t have the geopolitical gravitas of the ICC, “the ATCA allows foreign nationals the ability to sue in US Federal courts for violations of international law, particularly human rights violations,” Fletcher said. I pressed Professor Fletcher on the risks involved in a potential counter-suit for Israeli violations of international law. He responded that, “The concern about a counter-suit is litigious harassment, not the merits. Let them bring their case. A full hearing of the evidence is good for Israel.”
There are a number of logistical issues such a case raises. For example, how would Hamas be served with the complaint? If a judgment for violation of international law were reached, what kind of penalties could be levied and how would it be enforced? If Hamas has assets in the US, then they could be frozen as a result of a judgment against it. But it is unclear whether Hamas has any such assets or US bank accounts.
Professor Fletcher suggested that victims of Hamas’ war crimes sue Iran as well, since there is ample evidence that “Hamas are agents of Iran.” Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and pairing Hamas and Iran as co-defendants would highlight this fact. Moreover, it would be easier to enforce a judgment against Iran than it would an amorphous terrorist group in Hamas.
Given the inordinate frequency with which it condemns Israel, the United Nations may not be a hospitable environment for Israeli victims of Hamas war crimes to get justice. US Federal courts might provide a better forum for them to do so. In whichever way the victims of October 7 seek justice, it is clear that they will need to be creative in their approach.
Kenneth Blake is a former Special Victims Prosecutor at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn, NY. He is a Government and Critical Thinking teacher at St. Vincent de Paul High School in Petaluma, CA.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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