RSS
Horrific New Evidence Revealed of Hamas’ Systematic Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
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
Warning: This story contains graphic details about sexual violence, including rape and torture, carried out during Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel.
A major investigation has revealed harrowing new details about the systematic use of sexual violence and torture against dozens of Israeli civilians and soldiers by Hamas terrorists on the morning of Oct. 7.
The New York Times report, which took over two months to compile, relies on video footage, photographs, GPS data, and interviews with more than 150 people including soldiers, witnesses, survivors, and volunteer medics. It documents instances of gang rape, genital mutilation, and other brutal abuses of women and young girls.
Israeli soldiers and medics found over 30 bodies of women and girls near the site of the Supernova music festival massacre who had signs of abuse in their genital areas, according to the investigation.
The Times said it had identified at least seven locations where women and children appear to have been sexually tortured, including multiple kibbutzim such as Kfar Aza and Be’eri.
Times‘ reporters viewed images showing a woman with nails drilled into her thighs and groin areas and of female soldiers at an overrun military base who appeared to have been shot in their vaginas.
Two therapists who spoke with the Times said a woman who survived the music festival massacre — in which over 300 people were murdered and dozens taken hostage — had been gang raped by Hamas terrorists and is currently incapable of speaking about the instance with reporters or investigators.
The piece includes a quote from Mirit Ben Mayor, a police chief superintendent, who said that the Hamas terrorists were motivated by a combination of two hatreds: “the hatred for Jews and the hatred for women.”
The report marks one of the most detailed accounts of what Israeli officials have been saying for months: that instances of sexual violence on Oct. 7 were widespread. Since then, Israeli investigators have been slowly compiling evidence of sexual atrocities in preparation for possible war crimes prosecution.
Since the sexual violence atrocities on Oct. 7, much of the world’s reaction has been muted, particularly from international women’s groups and the United Nations.
United Nations Women — the UN agency for gender equality and women’s empowerment — released on Nov. 25 its first statement about the gender-based violence carried out on Oct. 7 — 50 days after the onslaught took place. A week later, on Dec. 1, the agency condemned for the first time ever the Hamas attacks, in which Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people, mostly civilians, across southern Israel and abducted 200 others as hostages to Gaza.
There have been calls to have UN Women disbanded for waiting so long to comment on the sexual violence, and earlier this month, Israeli actress Gal Gadot slammed the international community for staying quiet about the sexual abuse women experienced at the hands of Hamas.
Accounts of sexual violence against Israelis are not limited to Oct. 7.
Two Israeli doctors who treated freed hostages, as well as an Israeli military official familiar with the matter, confirmed to American newspaper USA Today that some released women revealed that they had suffered violent sexual assaults in captivity. All three spoke on condition of anonymity.
One of the doctors said that among those aged 12 to 48, many of the 30 suffered sexual assault during their captivity at the hands of Hamas in Gaza.
The post Horrific New Evidence Revealed of Hamas’ Systematic Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login