Hamas sexual violence on 7th October attack. Content warning.

[ArabellaScott]

A new investigation has shared more information on details of Hamas' atrocities.

I do urge caution when reading, and don't if you are feeling fragile.

'An independent, Israeli investigation has published harrowing details of "systematic, widespread" sexual violence by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups during the attacks on 7 October 2023, and against hostages.
The 300-page report concludes that rapes, sexual assault and sexual torture were intended "to maximize pain and suffering".
While the UN and others have published reports on sexual violence during the attacks – in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage – this is the most comprehensive.
It draws on 430 filmed interviews with survivors and witnesses, more than 10,000 photographs and videos filmed by attackers, and official records and material from attack sites.'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgz9k7pzggo

Again its instructive to read as many reports as one can. I've read the UN report and the commission and the APPGs reports.

There have been atrocities on both sides but they are not equal or equivalent.

Maybe its worth saying they are not comparable.

There are huge differences in scale, mechanisms, intent, structure, consequence, content, context, and means.

Trying to create some kind of atrocity scoreboard helps nobody. This isnt simple and it isnt going to be solved by nonsense about the RSOH.

I really do urge people to read all of the reports, probably more than once to allow thoughtful consideration of the contents.

Do you think if Ukraine went into Russia and killed and raped young people at a music festival and slaughtered people in their own homes thousands would be on the streets celebrating? No, we’d rightfully be horrified.

If the Irish republican movement had committed barbaric sexual violence and murdered 1000 British civilians in a matter of hours there would not have been solidarity marches week after week. The NI Republicans would argue they have been living under foreign occupation far longer than the state of Israel has existed.

The reaction to the Oct 7th attacks is about a deep-seated hatred of Israel. What is it about Israel that makes it so uniquely hated?

The irony is that while Owen Jones as nd his ilk seem blind to their own antisemitism they patronise and lesser the Palestinians too.

The Palestinians are perpetual victims, the most oppressed in history. The Palestinians, according to them, have no autonomy, no self-determination and can only thrive by the destruction of the State of Israel.

The Israeli’s should act in accordance with international law. They cannot use the Holocaust or generational trauma or attacks from neighbouring states or rockets as justification. They must be above it all.

However the Palestinians actions can be mitigated by being occupied and their resistance have no choice but to behave like medieval savages and rape and brutalise. It’s racist and paints the Palestinian people as lesser and to be held to lower standards. Many who think they are intelligent and anti racist are actually very stupid.

As I said a few posts ago, the use of rape as a weapon is widespread, but each example should be understood in detail because each is different in meaning and motivation, and cultural context, even if the mechanisms the same.

My view is the same of all atrocities, war crimes, acts of terror and dehumanisation. Each is different and should be understood as its own thing. I don’t think I suggested there should be a comparison or hierarchy at any point. But we should not hide from using the appropriate language whoever the actors are.

I have read the UN reports, just as I have read the UN reports of Oct 7. And, I have read eyewitness accounts and other reports that are not part of the UN evidence because of their threshold.

None are equivalent, none justifies another. They are all horrific, every death of an innocent civilian is equal and horrific. I don’t see that as controversial and I would ask anyone that does to consider why.

What is your point? Even if what you said was true (can you provide any evidence because it seems to massively ignore all the evidence showing the violent attacks these "innocent" people have committed before their arrests), it would never justify Hamas' crimes. Nothing can.

Hamas should not got praise for eventually returning civilians, including children, after they had been abused, tortured, and in some cases murdered. We all know they were perfectly happy for Israeli and Palestinian childred to keep dying so they could cling to power. Nor should the fact they did not hurt more people somehow be a positive. It certainly wasn't because they didn't want to.

Agree.

Yes. Sorry, if that post sounded like it was in response to yours it wasn't really! Just a general thought.

• I mean I was basically agreeing

Hamas/Gazans also told Yarden Bibas that his wife and children were safe and well and waiting for him when they freed him. They knew the his wife and children were dead, because they killed them. So they tortured him to the last.

From what I’ve read they did the same to Eli Sharabi 😞

You are correct @inamarina . The torture carried on until the actual handover. And let's not forget, the hostages probably thought that they were being lied to even about being released. And the hostage who was forced to dig his own grave?

Evyatar David. He and his friend Guy Gilboa-Dalal had also been previously taken along to watch a public hostage exchange, but were not released at that time themselves.

I thought you possibly were but it’s been a hectic thread so thought worth restating my own position! There’s definitely a tendency to hierarchy, so it’s worth being explicit on resisting that.

Yes it’s shocking. I assume you’re equally outraged at the IDF’s sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/14/palestinian-prisoners-sexual-torture-israel-backlash

Why not start a separate thread?

One thing I found particularly disturbing was the way Hamas and their supporters reveled in thinking up new and increasingly horrific ways to torture their victims, and the way so many people who claimed to be on the side of peace would (and continue to) dismiss it as a normal part of war. Things like making a spectacle of the bodies of the Bibas boys being returned in adult-sized coffins and then holding a party, and not returning Shiri Bibas, but instead some other poor woman.

I sincerely hope that the Palestinians in Gaza will be freed from their cruelty as soon as possible. The reports on how they treated, and continue to treat, civilians, particularly the most vulnerable, are horrifying.

Where would the fun be in that for the whataboutery posters who can't let us have one single conversation about murdered Jews.

More 'All Lives Matter'...

Don't the women spoken about in the report deserve to have their stories told without you pointing elsewhere?

Start a thread of your own. Or join one of the many other threads about the atrocities of Israel.

Yes, but not all of us see the need to treat despicable acts as a game of Uno, slapping a new one down on the table and looking around for a reaction. Puerile.

Oh, would this be the report that relied on Hamas-adjacent NGOs and claimed that Israel had trained dogs to rape people?

The one that was published the day prior to the release of the October 7th Report - which the NYT had been given in advance, so obviously knew the release date?

Nobody is saying that the IDF is perfect. Nobody is saying that rape as a weapon of war is ever acceptable. Rather, we're making the point that the IDF doesn't go to war with cable ties and handy phrasebooks with sentences like, 'Take off your pants' and 'spread your legs' (p. 58).

Apart from anything else the 'raping with dogs' thing is arrant nonsense, to my mind this devalues the whole thing. I do not know how one would even begin to train dogs to do it. Having taken my late lamented Chow to 'the sperm lady' for semen collection I have some idea of how very difficult it would be! Dogs respond to bitches in season, full stop. They do not mate for fun.

This, absolutely.

I find it depressing that some people just can't do that, they just can't acknowledge what happened on Oct 7th, or it has to be marginalised or minimised in some way.
What kind of mindset is that?

Because to acknowledge the full horror would be to admit that they've nailed their colours to the mast of an extreme, misogynistic and violent ideology.

Very true.

The Conflict in the Middle East board to be specific.

You expect comments minimising or denying Hamas rapes on there unfortunately, sorry to see that also happening by some on here.