Sexual and gender-based violence in the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel

[25] The UN Commission of Inquiry (CoI) subsequently published a legally mandated report in June 2024 that stated there was "a pattern indicative of sexual violence by Palestinian forces during the attack", but that it was unable to independently verify allegations of rape due to Israel's obstruction of its investigation.

[48] Shelly Harush, the police officer leading the investigation recounted to The Times on 2 December 2023: "It's clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people.

[51][52] The following day Middle East Eye reported that the released IDF video "was deleted and reposted several times after commentators noted inconsistencies in the testimony and subtitle mistranslations.

[58] Due to the large numbers of deceased individuals Israel was attempting to fully identify all of the victims at least a month after the 7 October attacks, causing overtaxed morgues to not collect physical evidence or process rape kits from any bodies.

[59] The UN, which found "clear and convincing information" of sexual violence during the Hamas attacks, reports that the limited forensic evidence is due to both the large number of casualties and the "dispersed crime scenes in a context of persistent hostilities".

[68] Sexual violence is alleged to have taken place in four types of locations:[68] Hamas led an attack on the Supernova Sukkot Gathering, an open-air music festival during the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret near kibbutz Re'im a little after 7 am on 7 October.

On 8 October, a video from the festival circulated on social media which showed a woman lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread and vagina exposed while her face was burned and her right hand covering her eyes.

[86] Similarly, in March the UN special representative stated that, at Kibbutz Be’eri, her team “was able to determine that at least two allegations of sexual violence widely repeated in the media were unfounded due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the facts gathered.".

"[90] Shari Mendes, an army reservist stationed at the Shura camp, recounted in an event at the United Nations that her team discovered female soldiers who were shot in their vagina or breasts, and reported that it appeared there was systematic genital mutilation by Hamas militants.

[94][39][95] In a February 2024 investigation The Intercept reported that Mendes became a prominent figure in Israeli government and media narratives on October 7 sexual violence "despite the fact that she has no medical or forensic credentials to legally determine rape."

"[103][102] In January 2024, a video taken October 2023 emerged showing 4 female Israeli soldiers[104] held hostage: Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Daniela Gilboa, and Agam Berger.

[68] A UN report in March 2024 concluded that there was "clear and convincing information" that Israeli hostages in Gaza experienced "sexual violence, including rape" and there were "reasonable grounds" to believe such abuse is "ongoing against those still held in captivity".

[107] The International Criminal Court, issuing an arrest warrant for the attack's alleged mastermind Mohammed Deif, stated that there were reasonable grounds to believe some Israeli hostages were subjected to sexual and gender based violence while held captive in Gaza.

[70] A New York Times investigation by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella, released in late December 2023, found at least seven locations where sexual assaults and mutilations of Israeli women and girls were carried out.

[70] The editorial process behind the article was criticized, with concerns raised including the use of inexperienced reporters, an overreliance on witness testimony, weak corroboration, and a lack of supporting forensic evidence.

[120] The UN team was also "unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence", and "did not gather information and/or draw conclusions on attribution of alleged violations to specific armed groups", due to the lack of a "fully-fledged" investigation.

[127] The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released an in-depth investigative report on 12 June 2024 which found that both Hamas and Israel had committed sexual violence and torture, along with intentional attacks on civilians.

[130][128] The commission was unable to independently verify testimony of genital mutilation, sexual torture and rape, citing a lack of access to witnesses and crime scenes, and Israel's obstruction of its investigations.

However, in May 2024 Physicians for Human Rights Israel published a "Clarification on the Organization’s November 2023 Position Paper on Sexual Violence", expressing regret for including subsequently "disputed or deemed unverifiable" testimonies.

The group also condemned the "manipulative and cynical" exploitation of accounts of sexual violence on 7 October by the Israeli government and other entities "as part of a campaign to dehumanize Palestinians and as a propaganda tool to justify Israel’s brutal military assault on the Gaza Strip.

[139][140] In June 2024, The Times published a report stating that investigators believed that Israel's claims about the scale and the formally sanctioned, systematic nature of sexual assaults did not stand up to scrutiny.

[3] In June 2024 The Times reported that Elkayam-Levy spread a "debunked story" about a "pregnant woman and her slaughtered foetus", while also circulating "photographs of murdered female soldiers that turned out to be images of Kurdish fighters in Syria.

"[3] The Times adds: "Elkayam-Levy has nonetheless remained the most prominent public voice on the sexual violence of October 7, winning the country’s highest civilian honour, the Israel Prize, in April.

"[3] The mostly ultra-orthodox ZAKA volunteer paramedic and rescue group began collecting bodies immediately after the Hamas attacks, while the IDF avoided assigning soldiers with training to carefully retrieve and document human remains in post-terrorism situations.

[145] Additionally, while speaking with reporters in March 2024 a member of the organization and IDF reservist stated that he had modified the clothing on the remains of women at the Nova music festival in order to preserve their dignity before taking an identification photograph.

[158] Israeli law professor Cochav Elkayam Levy told The New York Times that she sent a letter signed by dozens of scholars to UN Women on 2 November, calling for condemnation of sexual violence during the attack; she said she did not receive a response.

"[166] On 4 December, human rights' organizations, including Jewish ones as well as their supporters, protested in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York, some dressed in only their underwear and with synthetic blood smeared on their bodies.

Patten visited various locations, including the Nova festival site in Re'im, Gaza border communities, and the military base in Nahal Oz, to gain insights into sexual crimes committed by Hamas, and findings were submitted to the UN Secretary-General and the Security Council in March.

[187] Sean Durns of the pro-Israel media monitor Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America complained that the Washington Post did not present mass rape on 7 October as a fact.

[199][200] Five days later, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the sexual violence inflicted by Hamas "almost beyond human description or beyond our capacity to digest", and criticized International organizations such as UN Women for being too slow to condemn them.