Hamas Raped and Sexually Mutilated Men As Well as Women During October 7 Atrocities

Just when you thought you’d heard it all….

Hamas raped men as well as women during October 7 attack: Investigators reveal how sex assault victims were tied up, stripped and mutilated as Israel launches its ‘biggest ever criminal investigation’

Advocacy group said sexual violence was perpetrated against both sexes

By: Summer Goodkind and David Averre, Mail Online, 4 December 2023

Israeli investigators probing the fallout of the brutal October 7 attacks have found evidence that men as well as women suffered sexual violence and rape at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad attackers, activists have claimed.

Yael Sherer, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Survivors of Sexual Violence advocacy group, said there was physical evidence as well as eyewitness accounts of sexual violence perpetrated against both sexes amid the attacks.

‘There was sexual violence and rape in these communities in the south of Israel… we have a few living survivors – not a lot – of both genders. It didn’t only happen to women, it happened to men as well,’ she told BBC Radio 4.

Yael Sherer, a spokeswoman for Israel’s Survivors of Sexual Violence advocacy group, said there was physical evidence as well as eyewitness accounts of sexual violence perpetrated against both sexes amid the attacks.

‘There was sexual violence and rape in these communities in the south of Israel… we have a few living survivors – not a lot – of both genders. It didn’t only happen to women, it happened to men as well,’ she told BBC Radio 4.

‘Aside from finding bodies of people who were murdered, a lot of the bodies were mutilated… terrorists made sure to disgrace these people and dishonor them,’ she added.

It comes as Israeli police opened up the biggest investigation into sexual violence and crimes against women ever in the nation.

The leader of the investigation, Shelly Harush, said: ‘It’s clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people.’

Police have collected thousands of statements, photographs and video clips that have been called unbearable to watch from a mother’s perspective and include ‘girls whose pelvises were broken they had been raped so much’.

A pile of bodies are seen lying among debris at the Nova festival following the attacks

Yoni Saadon, 39, who survived the attack on the Nova music festival by hiding under dead bodies, this weekend gave a harrowing account of the sexual violence he saw perpetrated against women at the campground.

One horrifying image he described was the moment a woman’s decapitated head rolled across the road, after she was beheaded for refusing to be stripped naked.

As the sun rose on the desert festival and Hamas terrorists stormed in, Yoni took cover under a music stage. But a woman hiding alongside him was identified by terrorists.

‘She fell to the ground, shot in the head, and I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look as if I was dead too,’ he told The Sunday Times.

‘I will never forget her face. Every night I wake to it and apologise to her, saying ”I’m sorry”.’

After an hour, the shift manager peeked out. ‘I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her.’

The woman was screaming ‘stop it’ he said, and begged the terrorists to kill her to put her out of her misery.

‘When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head’, he said.

The father of four admitted how his mind kept reminding him it could have been one of his daughters, or his sister, who at the last minute bowed out of the festival.

The horror was far from over for Yoni as, hiding in the bushes, he saw two more Hamas fighters catch a woman.

‘She was fighting back, not allowing them to strip her,’ he recalled. ‘They threw her to the ground and one of the terrorists took a shovel and beheaded her and her head rolled along the ground. I see that head too.’

Yoni shared his story with The Sunday Times at a support group for the festival survivors in Sitria, south east of Tel Aviv.

Three times a week survivors from around Israel get together with parents whose children were among those slaughtered.

Volunteer therapists on hand included Bar Yuval-Shani, 58, who lost her only sister, Deborah, and brother-in-law, Shlomi Matias, both musicians and peace activists, killed on Holit kibbutz by militants who broke into their safe room.

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