IT’S DISGUSTING THAT I EVEN HAVE TO MAKE THIS
Most survivors of sexual abuse never come forward. This is largely in part because survivors know their stories will be picked apart. They know they will be gaslit and victim-blamed. Victim-blaming retraumatizes the victim.
Every single Jewish survivor of sexual abuse I’ve spoken to over the past three months is being retraumatized right now. The women in our community, especially, are being gaslit literally on a global scale. We are suffering from nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, depression, and more.
What happened to our sisters is traumatic enough. But the abuse we’ve endured from the world since has compounded that trauma a thousand fold.
The use of rape as a weapon of war is a war crime and a crime against humanity. But for Jews, it’s not rare. Sexual violence was characteristic of pogroms (anti-Jewish massacres) dating back thousands of years. It’s also something that periodically happened in Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, as well as during the 1948 war.
Anyone, literally anyone, can be a rapist, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality. And anyone, literally anyone, can be a victim of rape, regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, or nationality. If you think otherwise, you have some internal work to do.
FORENSIC EVIDENCE
It’s important to note that most of victims of sexual violence on October 7 were killed and their bodies were burnt to a crisp. It’s impossible to collect evidence such as semen from a body that has turned to ashes.
Even so, enough forensic evidence exists, such as:
(Trigger warning)
(1) two dead soldiers were shot directly into their vaginas
(2) in Kibbutz Be’eri, two dead teenage girls were found with their legs split apart. One had bruises in her groin and another had semen on her back
(3) a number of dead women were mutilated with knives through their vaginas. One of them had her internal organs removed through her vagina
(4) a number of dead women were found with blood in their pelvic areas and underwear soaked in blood
(5) a number of women were found with broken pelvises
(6) first responders and morgue workers saw a pattern of systematic genital mutilation
PHOTOS AND VIDEO
Before the frenzy of denial post-October 7, Hamas live-streamed its own massacre, posting the most gruesome and graphic videos to social media. There is no shortage of footage from October 7 pointing to sexual assault and other gender-based violence.
Some examples include:
(Trigger warning)
(1) In a video which was screened for journalists but has not been made available to the general public, “…a woman is unclothed from the waist down, with her underpants hanging off one thigh. She is lying face down and is dead. In another, a mutilated dead woman has her dress hitched up to her waist, with no underpants.”
(2) in the early hours of October 8, a woman searching for her missing friend shot a grainy video of Gal Abdush, where she is “lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition and her right hand covers her eyes.”
(3) The New York Times verified “photographs of one woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin” and “video, provided by the Israeli military, showing two dead Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who appeared to have been shot directly in their vaginas.”
(4) in a widely streamed video published on October 7, a Hamas terrorist refers to a female hostage as a sex slave
(4) there is the widely circulated video of Naama Levy being dragged by her hair into a truck, her gray sweatpants stained with a large amount of blood in the crotch region.
EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY
From October 7, eyewitnesses have maintained that they saw Hamas terrorists gang rape Israeli women. This testimony has not changed. The New York Times itself recently spoke with four eyewitnesses.
(Trigger warning)
Here are some of the testimonies:
(1) “He is here raping her…and then they pass her on to another person…she stood on her feet, she was bleeding from her back…[one of the terrorists] slices her breast and throws it on the road, and they’re playing with it. Afterwards, someone really penetrates her and shoots her in the head before he finishes. It’s not like he ejaculates and picks up his pants…He shoots her in the head while he’s still inside of her.”
(2) “Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends' bodies, dead bodies.”
(3) “She’s standing up. They start raping her. I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words…Then one of them raises a knife and they just slaughtered her.”
(4) released hostages have testified that female hostages are “being touched in the tunnels”
PERPETRATOR CONFESSIONS
Thousands of Hamas terrorists have been arrested since October 7, including 600 terrorists who were directly involved in the October 7 massacres. A number of them have admitted to policy of rape in their interrogations. While someone could surely argue that they said this under “coercion” or that it’s “Israeli propaganda,” but within the context of all the other evidence, these confessions are credible.
(Trigger warning)
One of the terrorists interrogated on video, Muhammad Nahed Ahmad El-Arsha, said: “According to the religion, all of what happened is forbidden…the kidnapping, the raping, the whoring of children.” In another interrogation, he added that the terrorists’ plans for the Israeli women were “to whore them, rape them.”
In another interrogation, also caught on video, the terrorist said: “[Hamas] became animals. It’s a thing a person doesn’t do. Beheading people, having sex with dead bodies, meaning the body of a dead young woman.”
In another filmed terrorist interrogation, the terrorist says, “Dirty them, to rape them!” when the interrogator asks him what Hamas was planning to do to the Israeli women.
SURVIVOR TESTIMONY
One consistent “criticism” of 10/7 deniers is that “no survivors have come forward.” Of course, this is because the vast majority of October 7 rape victims can’t come forward because they’re dead.
Nevertheless, according to the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs, other than the hostages, at least three female and one male victim of rape on October 7 survived. Two therapists treating a woman who was gang raped at the Nova musical festival massacre said she is in no condition to speak to the public.
This is an important point: the fact that so-called feminists are now demanding that victims “come forward” to the entire world to have their stories scrutinized and doubted is just about the most anti-feminist thing I can think of. These survivors have endured the biggest trauma of their lives and do not owe the public their intimate testimonies.
At least 10 of the released hostages, ranging in age from 12 to 48, were sexually assaulted or abused while in captivity. In an interview, released hostage Mia Schem testified to being sexually molested on October 7: “He started to touch me, in the upper part of my body. And I started to scream, to go crazy, amid the burning cars, the bodies.”
JEWISH BURIAL PRACTICES AND ZAKA
Jews are, if at all possible, traditionally buried within 24 hours of death. This practice dates back to the times of the Torah, 3000 years ago. Jews believe that a quick burial provides comfort to the soul and expedites its journey to the Olam HaBa, the World to Come. Burying the body within 24 hours isn’t always possible, but nevertheless, we try to bury the dead as soon as we are able to, though burials do not take place on Shabbat or other holidays.
The Torah prohibits leaving a body part unburied. This means that Jews try to bury bodies as intact as humanly possible. For example, if someone’s limb is severed at the time of their death, the limb is buried with the body.
ZAKA, which stands for Zihuy Korbanot Ason (Disaster Victim Identification), is a volunteer-based organization whose primary role is victim identification, primarily in the context of terrorist attacks. ZAKA traces its roots to the First Intifada, after a group of religious volunteers assisted with victim identification after a 1989 suicide bombing in Jerusalem which killed 16 civilians. ZAKA’s role is not a forensic one; rather, their primary mission is to ensure that Jewish victims can be buried in accordance with Jewish law. ZAKA is comprised almost entirely of observant Orthodox volunteers.
On October 7, no one could have possibly imagined the large-scale denial of the massacre, especially given the terrorists documented the massacre on social media themselves. As such, ZAKA performed its usual role: preparing bodies for a quick burial in accordance with Halacha (Jewish law). For this reason, much of the evidence of sexual assault was probably buried. This does not mean that there is no evidence or that the Israeli government was trying to hide something.
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