EDITOR’S NOTE: This report accommodates particulars of sexual assault and violence.
Hamas militants and their allies raped, assaulted and sexually tortured their victims throughout and after the October 7, 2023 terror assault on southern Israel “to maximise ache and struggling,” a landmark new report has concluded.
Shared first with CNN, the report presents probably the most complete physique of proof but of sexual and gender-based violence towards girls, males and kids, which it describes as “systematic, widespread, and integral to” the assault.
“A very powerful discovering is the truth that the sexual violence on October 7 and towards hostages in captivity has been a calculated technique by Hamas,” lead writer and human rights knowledgeable Cochav Elkayam-Levy advised CNN.
The report contains firsthand testimonies from greater than 10 survivors who endured excessive sexual violence and sexual abuse through the assault, their abduction or whereas held in captivity in Gaza.
A few of them, together with former hostages Romi Gonen, Rom Braslavski, Arbel Yehud, Amit Soussana, Ilana Gritzewsky and others, have spoken publicly about their ordeal. Different victims have solely shared their experiences confidentially with specialists, investigators and medical employees.
However the report additionally contains beforehand unknown allegations, together with a case of two minors who, whereas held hostage in Gaza, say they had been sexually abused and compelled by their captors to carry out sexual acts on one another.
A few of these particulars solely emerged after among the earlier stories had been printed, together with after the discharge of hostages from Gaza. Some got here from testimonies supplied on to the researchers, whereas others had been gathered in quite a few conferences with medical specialists, legal professionals representing among the victims, and others.
In a single notably harrowing instance, the report particulars three separate incidents of rape on the website of the Nova Music Pageant close to the Gaza perimeter, citing a survivor who was hiding within the speedy neighborhood of the assault.
“I heard one rape the place they had been passing her round. She was most likely injured, judging by her screams—screams you might have by no means heard anyplace,” the survivor is quoted as saying. Their account is corroborated by one other survivor, in response to the report, who additionally spoke about listening to the rapes, in addition to others who later noticed the our bodies of the victims, their garments torn, legs unfold and intimate areas mutilated.
A minimum of six different incidents of individuals instantly witnessing rapes and gang rapes are outlined within the report, with the entire witnesses describing victims being shot useless. In a single case, a witness mentioned she noticed a younger girl being raped by a number of males, mutilated and shot useless.
Elkayam-Levy mentioned the objective of the report – and a digital archive that accommodates all of the proof the group collected – is ensuring that the struggling endured by the victims couldn’t be “denied, erased, or forgotten.” Like different archives of this sort, the fabric won’t be accessible to the general public for a set time period to guard the privateness of the victims. CNN has not been capable of confirm the entire contents of the archive, nevertheless it has seen most of the visible supplies included in it.
The report was publicly endorsed by a lot of high-profile specialists and campaigners, together with Sheryl Sandberg and Hillary Clinton.
Houses destroyed through the October 7 Hamas assaults towards Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel. – Christopher Furlong/Getty Pictures
The group has spent greater than two years painstakingly gathering, reviewing and cataloguing proof from the assault. They are saying they carried out a whole lot of interviews and conferences with survivors, first responders, forensic examiners and medical specialists, and spent some 1,800 hours analyzing greater than 10,000 pictures and video segments from the assault, together with hours of grotesque materials recorded by the perpetrators.
The Civil Fee, which describes itself as an impartial non-governmental group, was arrange by Elkayam-Levy with the intention to doc and protect proof from the assault. Its report has recognized what the authors say is “clear and convincing proof” of “patterns” of sexual and gender-based abuse that occurred on a number of events throughout a number of websites.
They are saying that the repeated nature of the violence – together with sexual torture, killings following sexual violence, compelled nudity, restraint of victims, threats of compelled marriage, and filming and disseminating imagery of sexual violence – signifies this was an integral a part of the assault and its aftermath, dedicated towards each men and women.
The report says that most of the victims’ our bodies had been mutilated on October 7, with the attackers usually focusing on girls’s faces and intimate areas. The researchers reviewed pictures of most of the our bodies and interviewed forensic specialists in addition to individuals who labored on identifications on the IDF Shura base the place many of the our bodies had been introduced. They mentioned dozens had been shot or burnt within the chest and groin areas, mutilation that was usually inflicted on them after they had been useless.
Elkayam-Levy mentioned she believed this was a deliberate a part of the assault.
“Sexual violence is supposed to torture, humiliate. They mutilated (the victims’) intimate organs, they burned their genital areas, creating such a ache and struggling that can be remembered for generations to return,” she mentioned.
“The sufferer is an emblem of a nation. It’s the collective influence of it, the collective trauma that it creates, the collective struggling.”
Amit Soussana, who was kidnapped and held hostage by Hamas, speaks close to the stays of her dwelling in Kfar Aza, Israel. – Amir Levy/Getty Pictures
Preventing denials
The problem of sexual and gender violence on October 7 grew to become closely politicized in its aftermath, partly as a result of some accounts of horrific violence shared by officers instantly after the assault had been later discovered to be false.
To counter potential deniers, Elkayam-Levy mentioned each piece of proof included within the report had been rigorously cross-referenced and fact-checked.
Every case cited has been corroborated by witnesses, together with first responders who attended the scene. She mentioned the group behind the report – comprising some 25 specialists and contributors – had additionally labored with a gaggle of researchers who geolocated images and movies from the scene, pinpointing the situation of every sufferer and cross-referencing it with different proof.
The authors say they determined to not depend on any info obtained by means of state interrogations – a normal follow in compiling such stories, geared toward preserving the independence of the work. Hamas has repeatedly denied sexual and gender-based violence occurred through the assaults or towards these held captive.
The denials continued regardless of the United Nations’ particular consultant on sexual violence in battle, Pramila Patten, concluding after a fact-finding mission that there have been “cheap grounds to imagine that battle associated sexual violence, together with rape and gang rape, occurred.” Patten mentioned she was not capable of meet any survivors throughout her go to, however her group visited the websites of the assaults and interviewed dozens of witnesses and officers.
Pramila Patten, UN particular consultant on sexual violence in battle, speaks throughout a UN Safety Council assembly on the report of sexual violence through the Israel-Hamas battle. – Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Pictures
The Affiliation of Rape Disaster Facilities in Israel, an impartial group of Israeli researchers generally known as the Dinah Challenge, and numerous nationwide and worldwide media investigations all additionally concluded that rape and sexual abuse had been a part of the assault. The brand new report goes additional, calling the violence systematic and calculated.
Hamas has beforehand denied that its militants dedicated rape through the October 7 assault.
The Worldwide Felony Court docket sought arrest warrants for 3 Hamas leaders over their alleged duty for conflict crimes, together with rape and different types of sexual violence. Nonetheless, all three had been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, so the court docket closed the proceedings.
Some Israeli officers criticized worldwide our bodies for not paying sufficient consideration to the problem of sexual and gender-based violence, arguing this was all the way down to antisemitism.
In the meantime, a few of Israel’s critics denied it occurred and accused Israel of utilizing the allegations as an excuse for its brutal conflict in Gaza. Greater than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza because the conflict started two and a half years in the past, in response to the Palestinian Ministry of Well being.
Those that questioned the allegations homed in on the absence of first-hand testimonies from victims instantly after the assaults. Israeli authorities say it’s because lots of them had been murdered on October 7.
It was solely when forensic specialists examined their our bodies and checked out pictures and movies from the assault, seeing clear indicators of sexual violence, that researchers had been capable of piece collectively what occurred.
Launched Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski arrives at Sheba Hospital in Ramat Gan, close to Tel Aviv, Israel, on 13 October 2025. – Atef Sadafi/EPA/Shutterstock
One other issue was that within the speedy aftermath of the preliminary assault – with combating nonetheless raging within the space – some emergency crews broke regulation enforcement protocol, failing to gather forensic proof and study victims on the scene. There have been virtually no data or pictures of the crime scenes as they had been discovered.
Inside days of the assaults, whereas emergency employees had been nonetheless recovering the our bodies, Israeli authorities introduced journalists, together with CNN, to among the websites. Entry was almost limitless, with dozens of individuals allowed to stroll by means of the crime scenes in personal properties.
When CNN has beforehand requested about proof gathering, Israeli authorities and emergency responders pointed to the safety constraints of working inside an lively fight zone in addition to the necessity to determine and bury the victims.
This isn’t uncommon in instances of sexual violence, Elkayam-Levy mentioned. What was uncommon was the weaponization of the shortage of forensic proof to discredit the allegations.
“Anybody who has ever represented victims of sexual violence is aware of that questioning and denials come virtually instantly. However what pains me probably the most was really not the hesitation by the general public, it was the specialists who mentioned, ‘Present me the proof,’” Elkayam-Levy mentioned.
“I don’t keep in mind ever in my 20 years of expertise that I heard a feminist scholar come and say, present me the proof to a sufferer of sexual violence,” she added.
A number of the first responders had been volunteers with no formal coaching on how one can deal with proof. Many had been overwhelmed and traumatized, and a few gave accounts of issues that they had seen that later turned out to be false – however not earlier than they had been extensively circulated within the media, by Israeli officers and, in a single case, by Elkayam-Levy herself.
She was criticized publicly by some colleagues as nicely nameless authorities officers who had been quoted in Israeli and worldwide media questioning her motives.
These incidents had been later utilized by some critics to discredit different claims, even when proof was clear and corroborated by a number of sources.
Elkayam-Levy shortly grew to become some of the vocal advocates for the victims. She was awarded the 2024 Israel Prize, extensively thought of to be the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Like many advocates for victims of sexual violence, Elkayam-Levy has acquired threats, together with demise threats, associated to her work – work which she believes is price it.
“These women and men, victims of sexual violence, have been silenced within the worst method and cruelest method potential. Hopefully what we did is to place an finish to this.”
Editor’s observe: Assist is offered. For assist in the US, name the Nationwide Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or chat 24/7 on RAINN.org.
Internationally, a worldwide record of directories is supplied by UN Ladies, with nationwide companies on The Pixel Challenge.
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