Sexual violence as a weapon of war during October 7 massacre

[Twiglets1]

A new report providing the first legal framework for prosecuting Hamas terrorists for the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war during the October 7, 2023, massacre is being presented by the Dinah Project to First Lady Michal Herzog at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

The report confirms that Hamas systematically used rape and sexual violence as tools of war during the October 7 massacres and is the first to present a legal roadmap for identifying and pursuing justice for the use of sexual violence as a weapon of warfare, which constitutes a crime against humanity.

The gathering of primarily women notably includes former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky, who has publicly spoken about being sexually assaulted by her captors in Gaza.

“This report tells the truth as it is — shocking, painful, but necessary. On behalf of all those who were harmed, we are committed to continuing the fight until their cries are heard everywhere and justice is done,” says First Lady Michal Herzog.

“We carry here a universal message: that sexual violence cannot be accepted as a tool of war,” she says, drawing attention to the plight of the remaining 50 hostages, including Inbar Hayman, the single female captive who is believed to be dead.

www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-provides-legal-framework-to-prosecute-sexual-violence-during-oct-7-hamas-massacre/

When people are allowed to say Islam is a threat; Something the counter terrorism department has confirmed; then maybe a modicum of sense will prevail.
Whilst people are okay with chants of ‘death’ whilst simultaneously saying the working class are racist bigoted scum, the oppression of freedom of speech in the uk will continue to be eroded.
The Jewish community has NEVER posed a threat to Uk security. The same can’t be said for Islam.
This is factual. Not propaganda or political rhetoric.

Exactly. It literally blows my mind the amount of my politically left leaning friends who are now so " pro- Palestinian". Like rape, murder in the worst way, women's rights don't matter. If they had to live even a day there they would be on Israel's side. As is everyone who has visited Israel and knows it's not the monster state some people like to make out it is. The only place in the middle east where gay people can get married....yet Israeli's were outraced from London Pride. Turkeys voting for Xmas.

I mean...yeah, of course? That's what "proportionate" means. As opposed to raping and murdering thousands of women and kids.

So if they'd staged a re-enactment of 7/10 in reverse as retaliation and done the exact same things in the same way, to the same number of innocent randomly selected people, that would be cool with you, would it? You'd consider that right and proper punishment of Hamas? To randomly select Gazan members of the public to terrorise and murder all in one day, including cutting babies throats, until they'd reached approximately 1200 people, give or take? Not bomb them, but actually chase them down, terrorise, rape and murder them in person? By hand?

You'd be saying 'Yeah. That's fine Israel. Knock yourself out. It's only fair and proportionate.'

We need to unite against the terrorist organisations that are responsible for the current conflict.
We need stop being so scared of being ‘islamophobic’ and remember the facts. Islamic terrorism is the no1 threat to uk soil.
Do you see Ireland bowing down? No, and fair play to them.
I am also gobsmacked that Pride is no longer a movement for actual gay/bi men and women.
As if any gay person would have liberties in Islamic states 🤷‍♀️

A proportionate response to October 7 isn't about matching body counts - it's about doing whatever it takes to get the hostages home and dismantle Hamas so they can never repeat the atrocities they’ve openly promised to carry out again. Any country on earth would demand the same, and no nation would be expected to accept less.

The usual rules of war barely apply here because this isn't a normal war. On one side you have an army - on the other, a terror group that hides in civilian clothing, uses hospitals and schools as cover, fires from UN shelters, and builds tunnels under kindergartens. Hamas wants civilian deaths, especially among its own people, because that turns global opinion against Israel. The suffering of Palestinians is its currency.

While Israel is expected to feed, medicate, and shelter the children of the very people trying to kill them, Hamas steals aid, hoards fuel, and uses civilians as human shields. They deploy child soldiers, booby-trap civilian homes, and hold hostages as leverage. Two years of war - and not one traditional battle.

Because Hamas doesn’t fight to win battles. It fights to manipulate the world into tying Israel’s hands.

In all this, the global conversation routinely ignores Hamas’ blatant war crimes: the deliberate slaughter of civilians, systematic sexual violence, hostage-taking, and total contempt for international law. Somehow it’s all hand-waved away with the word “Nakba,” as if that justifies every horror.

And even doing that is a stretch that requires the rewriting of history. Everything before 1948 disappears. Centuries of Jewish persecution, subjugation, exile, pogroms, statelessness - erased. Hundreds of years of being second class by law in their own home isn't factored. Jews returning to their ancestral home are painted as colonisers, and any level of hatred and savagery towards them is permissible.

I've watched in real time as people excuse terrorism, deny documented atrocities, glorify groups like Hamas, and even romanticise Bin Laden. One of the most revolting has been the denial of sexual violence - despite autopsies, forensic evidence, eyewitnesses, testimonies from doctors, UN reports, and NGO investigations some people will outright deny it occurred.

But if the facts don’t fit the good-versus-evil script people have written in their heads, they just reject the facts. I can tell you - where i come from not a few miles away from Israel, the majority of people completely deny Jews have any right of presence in the middle east at all.

They literally just re-wrote history to pretend Jews were not in Judah. It's so weird. We once had 75000 Jews that had been there 2000 years and then boom, all of them gone. The nakba no one talks about though, as for some reason the world seems to think the rights and stories that belong to everyone else don't apply to these particular people.

I know some Jews, I met them in my adult life. They are really cool, kind people with good senses of humour and I would imagine most of the people at the nova festival that day probably just wanted to have peace with Palestinians. Utter, atrocious waste of life.

Why do you think a murder is more of a murder if it’s done “by hand”? However you slice it, Israel has murdered a hell of a lot more people than Hamas. So yeah, it’s disproportionate.

Going into someone's home and deliberately butchering them is very different to civilians killed in a war when killing them is not the objective, but a tragic consequence of war. Do you really not understand this?

And let us not forget this incident where a bedouin girl was gang raped and murdered by the newly formed Israeli army.

Are you seriously bringing up a rape from 1949 in a thread about the gang rapes and sexual violence committed during the current war? What exactly is your point? Does this whataboutery serve a purpose? Because a girl was raped and murdered in 1949… what? Are we going through every rape or murder by every army in the last 80 years? For what purpose?

For clarity: that horrific crime happened in 1949. The IDF at the time launched an investigation, the platoon commander was court-martialed, convicted of murder, and sent to prison. Justice was done.

Meanwhile, the Hamas rapists responsible for what happened on October 7 won’t be investigated, won’t be tried, and certainly won’t be punished. They’ll be celebrated for what they did - rewarded for it.

It’s a shame you felt the need to drag this up, just to avoid facing what really happened to the victims of October 7. I find everything around this situation so revolting.

What I understand is that as a person of Jewish heritage, who was brought up being told that criticising Israel is not antisemitism and conflating all Jews with the behaviour of Israel IS antisemitism, all of this is incredibly tiring.

That’s illegible. And this thread is about sexual violence as a weapon of war during the October 7th 2023 massacre.

I think whats so sad is the level of rape denial around this. In no other conflict have I seen people rush to deny that rape took place. It’s weird how people are happy to throw their lot on with murders but not rapists because rape isn’t “noble” it makes you just look like a pervert so they deny it took place.

Your reply doesn't relate to my post, but I will answer anyway.

Criticising Israel is not antisemitic - nobody serious is claiming otherwise. But let’s be honest: some people have a very creative definition of “criticism,” which often crosses into something far more toxic. What is very common for example is taking everything that antisemitism is (the idea that Jews are uniquely evil and must be destroyed for humanity to be right) and just applying the exact same theory to the Jewish state or Zionists or some other clearly Jewish thing that they think gives them a hall pass. Which is antisemitism, as described on the Jerusalem Declaration specifically as "coded antisemitism". It's like they think they found the antisemitism cheat code!

What is also antisemitic is holding Jews around the world collectively responsible for the actions of Israel - and that happens every day, in attacks, abuse, vandalism, and exclusion. A problem which is escalated vastly by demonisation of things naturally associated with Jews, such as Israel.

It’s not antisemitic to acknowledge that Jews and Israel are connected. Israel is the Jewish state - founded as a homeland for the Jewish people. Most Jews around the world feel a bond with it, whether cultural, religious, familial, or personal. So yes, the two are naturally associated.

The ones who conflate “Jews” and “Israel” in a hateful way are the antisemites themselves. They reverse-engineer the definition of antisemitism to suit their agenda- insisting they’re “just criticising Israel” while relentlessly spewing age-old tropes, obsessively demonising the only Jewish state, and celebrating or justifying violence against Jews. Then, when you call it what it is, they accuse you of being the one conflating Jews and Israel.

No. They’re the ones doing that.

You think it started in 1948? Do we all get to decide when history started to suit our argument?

Seriously? Coming on a thread about sexual violence on October 7th to post screenshots from a social media account that gleefully posted videos of Israelis running from "resistance fighters" on October 7th? That's a new low.

Innocent Palestinians have been butchered in their homes or walking down the street minding their own business for decades by IDF including children shot playing in their garden.

Hamas has denied its forces committed sexual violence against women or mistreated female hostages.

How can they deny it?

We all saw how Shani Louk was treated.

This is absolutely mind boggling to me.

Yes, Hamas (and Palestinian civilians) cut off heads, dismembered children while alive, burnt families alive, took babies hostage and strangled them while in captivity then mutilated their bodies but RAPE - oh no, they’d never do that.

Fucking nuts!

This is absolutely mind boggling to me.

It's terrifying

@stonecutterNo. It didn’t start in 1948. In pre biblical times. Some people cannot live in peace. Each generation has a go at helping but gets nowhere fast. There is no answer because they all kill each other.

And the young woman with blood soaked jogging pants pulled out of the truck by her hair with her Achilles heel slashed.

Not sure what happened to her afterwards? Was she found?

I’ve actually seen pictures of women half burnt one with legs open and nails in her vagina. Traumatising enough just bearing witness let alone thinking what they went through.

How can that be compared with civilians being caught in the crossfire of a war without deliberate intention to kill, in all honesty.

I’d rather myself or my DD go that way than what happened to those poor women.

All at the hands of Hamas either way you look at it.

For fuck’s sake … NO, that is NOT what ‘proportionate’ means. ‘Proportionate’ means:

(a) do you have a legitimate military purpose?
(b) if so, you must not go beyond what is necessary to achieve it.

Go away, and don’t come back until you’ve learned such basic stuff.

Naama Levy - she came home a few months ago.
@Anonimummy

They don’t have a legitimate military purpose at this point, do they?