When and if terrorists now detained in Israel are prosecuted, they should be charged with sexual violence, authors of a new report advise.
C ommon points of discussion about the war in the Middle East, almost two years after Hamas invaded Israel, are the humanitarian aid situation, Israel’s impressive effort to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, and seemingly never-ending cease-fire talks. Survivors and victims of October 7, though, are still healing — and more and more, as time passes, their stories have gone untold.
Which is why the Dinah Project compiled a comprehensive account of one of the most horrendous aspects of Hamas’s attack: the terror organization’s pervasive and strategic use of sexual violence. As early as October 8, when Hamas posted videos of the carnage on social media, it was easy to see that terrorists had brutalized and assaulted women. There was the video of Naama Levy, who was dragged by her hair into a Jeep, with blood stains on the crotch area of her pants. There was the video of Shani Louk splayed out nude in the back of a truck bed as terrorists prodded at her with their feet and guns. There was testimony from forensic analysts who processed bodies.
Israel Defense Forces killed the man who dragged Levy into the Jeep, Muhammad Abu Aseed, in a September 2024 drone strike. The IDF also killed the terrorist who spat on Louk’s body, and it has killed or arrested other terrorists who abducted and abused females on that day. While the IDF seeks physical retribution, Israeli scholars and lawyers with the Dinah Project have done their part to ensure that victims’ voices are heard.
Released last week, the report compiles evidence from 5,000 photos and more than 50 hours of footage from the attacks. Experts also interviewed 34 survivors, witnesses, and released hostages; met with hostage families, residents of kibbutzim, and relevant Israeli scholars and politicians; and reviewed documents the IDF retrieved from Gaza to gain a fuller understanding of the scope of the attacks.
Dinah Project scholars didn’t discover anything unreported — but they were able to establish that there were clear patterns, methodologies even, of sexual abuse that occurred in different arenas of the attack. Rape, genital mutilation, and the use of sexual humiliation to advance war aims were systemic acts of terror, the Dinah Project found.
Terrorists committed multiple acts of gang rape during the attack and multiple acts of rape and severe sexual assault both on October 7 and while hostages were in captivity. They also mutilated women in several cases. Survivors witnessed terrorists sexually assaulting dead victims as well. The assaults were spread throughout southern Israel, where terrorists attacked: at the Nova music festival, at the Nahal Oz military base, on Route 232, and in Gaza.
The full nature of Hamas’s attack may never be known, as Hamas murdered and silenced most of its victims. Israelis gathered and analyzed what information they could from “talking bodies.”
First responders found “bodies with objects inserted into their private parts,” “bodies with signs of shooting or other mutilations in the area of the genitalia,” “bodies of naked women cuffed onto tees,” and “bodies of half-naked or fully naked women, some lying with their genitalia exposed and legs spread.” These accounts happened mostly at the Nova music festival and at the civilian villages Kibbutz Be’eri, Kibbutz Alumim, Kibbutz Nahal Oz, and Kibbutz Re’im.
Terrorists posted videos on Telegram and other social networks of “the desecration of bodies of partially naked male hostages, including stomping on their genitalia,” and “forced partial or full nudity, sometimes accompanied by public display; sexual humiliation by various acts of violence (e.g. kicking, jumping over, stomping) directed at the genitalia or the buttocks; possible mutilation of the genitalia).”
The Dinah Project is one of the first groups to address the legal challenges behind such a proven systemic attack. After reviewing all the evidence, the group was able to reach the conclusion that “all terrorists who participated in the attack bear full responsibility for all acts of sexual violence committed during the attack — especially the commanders of the terrorists in various locations.”
Attributing responsibility to the terrorist organization instead of individual terrorists legitimizes the theory, which has by all accounts been proven post–October 7, that Hamas’s genocidal attack was motivated by the group’s ideological backbone — which seeks to demonize Israel and the Jewish people. The attack and sexual assault of civilians was not a result of collateral conflict, the retired judge and lawyer who co-founded the Dinah Project, Nava Ben-Or, told National Review, “but a purpose in and of itself.”
Many international organizations, American student groups, and progressive politicians who laud themselves as defenders for survivors of sexual assault were suspiciously silent on Hamas’s atrocities. Those who labeled rapists freedom fighters “see Israel as the only side which is responsible for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” Ben-Or said, thus contextualizing Hamas’s assault on Israeli civilians within the framework of Israel’s “colonialist” occupation of Palestinian territory.
“It’s very agonizing, because this means that raping women can be contextualized, that there are some circumstances in which it is legitimate, or at least understandable,” Ben-Or said. “It’s an inevitable conclusion, that if you keep quiet, then you actually say, ‘Well, this is ok because they’re colonialists — they’re Jews. They deserve it.’”
When and if terrorists now detained in Israel are prosecuted, they should be charged with sexual violence, authors advise. Hamas should also be blacklisted internationally as a terror organization that favors sexual violence as a weapon of war.
“The United Nations has never done it, and we think this is deplorable,” Ben-Or said. “Nothing will undo what happened, but at least the feeling that the world acknowledges [the attack] and takes responsibility in trying to avoid the next attack — this is justice.”