Human Rights Voices

On October 7, 2023, 1,500 Hamas terrorists invaded Israel by land, sea and air, massacring innocent youngers at a music festival, burning people living in border communities alive in their homes, decapitating babies, and raping numerous women. Simultaneously, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at the Jewish state. Israeli forensic experts have already confirmed that Hamas is guilty of rape, torture and other crimes against humanity.

As of today, more than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, over 5,000 have been wounded, and over 230 are held hostage by Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 massacre, which Yotam Polizar, the CEO of IsraAid, a prominent Israeli humanitarian aid organization, compared to the Yazidi Genocide in magnitude. Already, the Israel Police have begun to gather testimonies on the rape and other forms of torture Hamas committed on October 7.

Local Israeli media documented countless instances of rape on October 7. It is very hard to forget the images of 19-year-old Naama Levy being forced into a jeep by Palestinian Arab terrorists, with blood flowing between her legs, an indication that she was raped.

One survivor of the Supernova Music Festival massacre told The Jerusalem Post about the rape and murder of her friend: “As I am hiding, I see in the corner of my eyes that a terrorist is raping her. She was alive beforehand. She stood on her feet, bleeding from her back. But then the situation was that he was pulling her hair. She had long, brown hair.” As one survivor of the music festival massacre told Tablet: “Women were raped next to the dead bodies of their friends.”

Another survivor told Haaretz of a gang rape on October 7: “They bent someone over. I realized he was raping her and passing her onto someone else in uniform.” The terrorist, she says, then shot her in the head and mutilated her body.

More recently, the Israel Police has started to collect the testimony of survivors, documenting how Hamas massacred, raped and tortured en masse. Itzik Itah, who leads emergency responders, told The Jewish Chronicle: “In one house, there was a couple tied to each other with their clothes down and you can see definitely that the woman underwent rape. When she is naked and face down, and her clothes had clearly been taken off but not by her, that’s a woman who underwent rape.”

However, following all of these atrocities, women’s rights activists abroad have been deathly silent, while others on social media have even had the audacity to deny that rape and other crimes against humanity were committed by Hamas on October 7, claiming that the condition of bodies and the time that had passed until the women were identified prevented checking secretions!

UN Women, one of the most prominent women’s rights organizations, released a statement on October 13 – almost a week after Hamas’s massacre and abduction of the hostages – saying: “UN Women condemns the attacks on civilians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and is deeply alarmed by the devastating impact on civilians including women and girls.” There is no mention of the grave atrocities like rape, beheading, and mutilation committed against Israeli women and girls on October 7.

In response to UN Women’s October 13 statement, 140 women’s rights organizations, most of them being either Jewish or Israeli, drafted a letter stating:

“We strongly implore UN Women – and all other human rights agencies – to gravely condemn the brutal attack and atrocities committed by Hamas on Israeli citizens as well as the abduction of innocent hostages, to urgently act to protect the special humanitarian rights of women and children, and to do everything in their power to expose and recognize these atrocious and horrific acts of violence against women and girls and to bring the release of all hostages immediately.”

Following this, CEDAW, another prominent international women’s rights organization, issued a statement calling for the “initiation of inclusive peace talks, the cessation of war and an urgently needed humanitarian corridor.” They did not mention at all the cruel mass rapes committed by the Hamas terror organizations against Israeli women and girls.

Following this, Nitsana Darshan Leitner, the head of the Shurat HaDin law firm, stated in a recent YouTube video: “Where are the women’s rights organizations? Where is the Me Too Movement? Where were you when Israeli women were raped and slaughtered by Hamas terrorists?”

She continued: “Where are you when Israeli girls are kept hostage, tortured and sexually abused by subhuman animals? How come you have not even spoken a word? Is it ok to rape Jews? Is that what you are saying? Because we hear you all the time. All the time but now. On October 7, women and children were brutally raped by Hamas, some of them so sadistically that bones were broken. Young girls and elderly women were murdered and burned alive. Others were taken to Gaza to be gang raped on the streets and in military bunkers. Images of bleeding women being paraded through Gaza as captives were broadcast worldwide and nothing, not a word from you. No condemnation. Not a call to release the women and children.”

According to Darshan-Leitner, “Rape has been recognized as an insidious war crime. It is a horrific criminal weapon that tries to serve a political objective. The Geneva Convention specifically provides that ‘women should be protected against any attack upon their honor, in particular against rape or any form of indecent assault.’ Why do you believe that this international law that you constantly wave in our faces should not apply in this case? Why do you believe that the international tribunals are merely a weapon to punish Israel but in no way should be used to safeguard Israelis?”

In conclusion, she proclaimed: “There is no taking sides in this. This is pure evil. This is inhuman. It’s rape. It’s a war crime. When you stood up for women’s rights, you made a change. You exposed, hunted down, shamed and prosecuted the perpetrators of rape and sexual violence in your countries. But now you chose to sit idly because it involves Jewish girls and women. There is only one word to describe it. Antisemitic hypocrisy.”

Earlier this week, in a rally organized by Israeli Arab journalist Lucy Aharish, some 1,000 Israeli women gathered in Tel Aviv, demanding that women’s rights organizations worldwide take a stance against Hamas’s crimes against humanity. According to her, more than 100 women are presently being held hostage in Gaza, some of them children: “We, the women of Israel, are calling for the return of the girls and women stolen from us.” Former Miss World Linor Abargil also attended the rally and added: “How can it be that all 268 existing women’s organizations in the world do not rise up to cry out? I call on the women leaders of the world to cry out.”

The #MeToo campaign believed women's stories of rape and violence. It seems that was true unless they are Jewish. A new campaign on Twitter ask women to sign https://metoo-unlessurajew.com