A few days ago, the British newspaper “The Times” published a long story of what it said was a testimony from a survivor of the attack of last October 7, in which he narrated “horrific” details about Hamas members committing a rape incident against an Israeli girl before killing her.
Many responded to the story, and that it was not based on solid journalistic standards, especially since it relied on a single testimony, without investigating its credibility.
The BBC published a similar story based on unverified testimonies, in what appeared to be a media attempt to restore momentum to international support for the war.
The Hamas movement responded to the reports accusing its members of committing sexual violence during the October 7 operation, saying that they are lies and aim to cover up the movement’s humanitarian dealings with Israeli detainees, according to the movement.
For her part, influencer and media personality Mona Hawa refuted the accounts, and revealed the witnesses’ connection to Israeli institutions with a bad reputation, including rape accusations against senior officials within them. Indeed, in a video of about 10 minutes, Hawa recounted many pieces of evidence that sparked widespread controversy about the Israeli occupation’s use of the tactic of fabricating horrific stories with the aim of demonizing the Palestinians and justifying the barbarism committed by its army against the children and women of Gaza.
Fears are rising that the Israeli occupation will commit new war crimes in Gaza, which may include sexual assaults, in light of the Israeli media mobilization to promote the Palestinians committing violations of this kind in the October 7 attack.
These concerns arise based on the Israeli army’s long record of committing sexual assaults in the West Bank, which this report reviews. Human rights organizations and court documents documented cases of rape and sexual violations committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilian victims.
Mona Hawa’s report addressed the issue of impunity for perpetrators of sexual assaults among soldiers and occupation forces, which usually characterizes this behavior, especially when their crimes are subject to formal accountability mechanisms before the Israeli courts.
The latest incident was revealed by the recently resigned US State Department employee, Josh Paul, who left his position in protest against his country’s policies of violating international law through its support for Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza.
Paul revealed during his interview on CNN that he was part of the process of examining the human rights situation in the US State Department regarding the use of American weapons destined for Israel, and that they had received news from a Palestinian human rights institution, Defense for Children International. In Palestine, it indicates that a rape was carried out by Israeli security personnel against a 13-year-old Palestinian child during his detention in Al-Maskobiyya prison in Jerusalem.
Paul continued that they examined the story, which they believed was true, which prompted them to inform the Israeli government, which in turn directed the Israeli army to storm the headquarters of the Palestinian institution and close it, and then declare it a terrorist entity.
Cases of sexual assaults and rape do not appear to be isolated in the behavior of the security forces and the Israeli army, in light of the rhetoric in which its leaders dehumanize the Palestinians, the most recent of which was Defense Minister Gallant’s statements that they are dealing with “human animals” in Gaza.
In this context, Professor Heidi Viterbo, Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London, pointed out a series of posts that he had tweeted about 4 years ago on his account on the X platform, which documented incidents of rape and sexual assault against Palestinian victims committed by soldiers and security personnel. Israelis. Viterbo pointed out that these practices often went unpunished despite judicial convictions.
Viterbo begins by refuting the results of an Israeli study published in 2006, which claimed that incidents of rape committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian women since 1950 are rare and baseless. Quinn Merry’s law professor cites the conviction of an Israeli guard who committed a sexual assault inside an occupation prison, citing his conviction decision published in Hebrew.
Viterbo continued that in 2018, two Israeli soldiers appeared in court because they forced a Palestinian woman to take off her clothes, before they harassed her and touched her sensitive parts. In the same context, Dr. Heidi adds that in 2016, an Israeli soldier was convicted of committing serious sexual crimes against a Palestinian woman. He stressed that the Israeli authorities have a long record of systematically ignoring Palestinian complaints, as the British academic believes that incidents of rape and other sexual assaults have occurred.
Earlier this year, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that two Israeli female soldiers forced five Palestinian girls to take off their clothes in the city of Hebron. The newspaper reported that the incident occurred at gunpoint and the release of a ferocious trained dog to attack them.
In 2017, Tel Aviv Tribune published the story of the rape of a Palestinian woman by Israeli police officers at one of the occupation checkpoints in Jerusalem, where the woman recounted attempts to harass her before she was taken to one of the headquarters, where an Israeli policeman entered her into one of the rooms and raped her while she was screaming and begging for help without anyone saving her. . The Israeli judiciary refused to open any investigation into the incident, despite the victim filing a complaint more than once. Such incidents had been repeated in the past. In 2005, the Israeli Public Prosecution filed a rape charge against the Israeli guard officer, Oded Zachariah, who was working in the “Maale Adumim” settlement in Jerusalem. The indictment revealed that Zachariah had sexually assaulted a Palestinian girl aged 15 years. At the age of 14, he raped her 10 times, while the same guard raped another 23-year-old girl at gunpoint.
The repeated incidents of rape and sexual assault committed by occupation soldiers indicate that it is systematic behavior, especially since the aggressors usually escape punishment, or are subject to symbolic and light punishments. The Israeli court returned an Israeli officer to the army after he was dismissed from it following his conviction of raping a Palestinian woman during his service in the Civil Administration between 2013-2015. The Israeli army had hidden the details of the incident for 5 years before it was forced to reveal them as part of a years-long legal battle with the Hebrew news site Ynet. The army then justified preventing the publication of the details by claiming that they were a “danger to national security.”
These practices represent an extension of a chronic policy of racial discrimination and dehumanization of victims, through numerous legal statements and applications. The Israeli army was subject to religious teachings that permitted it to rape non-Jewish women, according to the army’s rabbi, Colonel Eyal Karim, who was appointed by former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman in 2016. Such racist teachings sparked controversy at the time, as Rabbi Karim had said, “Intercourse With non-Jewish females it is very dangerous, but it is permissible during war.”