Tag: terrorism

“A harrowing new report by The New York Times detailed horrific accounts of sexual violence carried out by Hamas during its October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel.
Allegations of rape were made almost immediately after the attacks, which Israel said left some 1,200 people dead.

But many of the accounts were not from direct witnesses, sparking debates about whether they could be relied upon.

The Times said it carried out exhaustive work on its investigation, citing more than 150 interviews, video footage, photos, and GPS data.

It concluded that in at least seven locations women and girls appeared to have been the victims of sexual assaults or mutilations.

One witness interviewed by the outlet was Sapir, a 24-year-old accountant who only gave her first name.

She said she saw gunmen rape and kill at least five women while she was hiding near Route 232, around four miles southwest of the Nova music festival, which was targeted by Hamas on October 7.

She told the outlet that she saw “about 100 men” as they dished out weapons and passed wounded women between them.

In a particularly disturbing and graphic account, Sapir said that she saw the attackers cut the breast off of one woman as she was being raped and pass it between them before throwing it on the ground. “They play with it, throw it, and it falls on the road.”

“That day, I became an animal,” Sapir said. “I was emotionally detached, sharp, just the adrenaline of survival. I looked at all this as if I was photographing them with my eyes, not forgetting any detail. I told myself: I should remember everything.”

Another witness, Raz Cohen, said he survived the attacks by hiding in the dried-up bed of a stream along Route 232. He told the Times that he saw five men dragging a young, naked woman across the ground.

“I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words,” Cohen said.

“Then one of them raises a knife,” he added, “and they just slaughtered her.””

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hamas-used-horrific-sexual-violence-131412764.html