A recent report, based on compiled open-source evidence and new testimonies, has concluded that acts of extreme sexual violence, including rape and gang-rape, perpetrated by Hamas terrorists during their brutal October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel were part of a premeditated and systematic weapon of war.
Authored by The Dinah Project, a global initiative dedicated to advancing justice for victims of conflict-related sexual violence, the report, titled “A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond,” urges international human rights groups to acknowledge that Hamas utilized sexual violence as a component of its atrocities and calls for the U.N. secretary-general to blacklist the Palestinian militant group.
“The main goal is to provide, for the first time, a comprehensive framework, based on all the available information, that has been analyzed and cross-checked from a legal perspective to prove that sexual violence was indeed used as a weapon of war by Hamas on October 7,” stated Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University, which oversees The Dinah Project.
“Based on that, we hope to develop or to propose a legal theory that allows for the prosecution of all the terrorists who took part in the attack and hold them responsible and accountable for all the acts of sexual violence that were perpetrated,” Halperin-Kaddari said. She officially presented the report to Israel’s first lady Michal Herzog, wife of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, on Tuesday.
While accounts of sexual violence, including rape, gang-rape, and genital mutilation, emerged swiftly following Hamas’s brutal attack, which ignited 20 months of conflict in Gaza, some in the international community – including various women’s rights groups – exhibited initial reluctance due to a perceived lack of physical evidence or identifiable victims.
Halperin-Kaddari pointed out that these victims were either murdered, taken hostage, or too traumatized to speak about their experiences.
“It was a huge disappointment that the international human rights community could not handle the truth or escape the politicization of this issue,” she stated, adding, “it’s a sign of a failure by the international human rights community that could not accept a complex situation where one side in the conflict, which is always perceived to be the victim, turns into the aggressor and uses the most horrific kind of crime — rapes and sexual violence — to advance their cause.”
Under subsequent pressure, certain international organizations, such as and the International Criminal Court in The Hague, did conduct investigations. These inquiries aligned with accounts from witnesses and first responders, confirming that sexual violence and rapes had occurred.
The Dinah Project’s report builds upon those investigations, uniquely compiling, for the first time, first-hand testimonies, including from 15 returned hostages, 17 eye and earwitnesses, and 27 first responders.
According to the report, which also incorporates forensic evidence, as well as visual and audio documentation, “sexual violence was widespread and systematic” during the attack, which resulted in the murder of over 1,200 people, both civilians and soldiers, and the abduction of approximately 251 individuals to Gaza.
Furthermore, the report found that acts of rape, gang-rape, and other forms of sexual violence took place in at least six distinct locations: the Nova music festival, Route 232, Nahal Oz military base, and the Kibbutzim of Re’im, Nir Oz, and Kfar Aza.
“Clear patterns emerged in how the sexual violence was perpetrated, including victims found partially or fully naked with their hands tied, often to structures like trees or poles; evidence of gang rapes followed by execution; genital mutilation; and public humiliation,” the report detailed.
For those who were taken hostage, sexual violence continued into captivity, with multiple returnees reporting “forced nudity, physical and verbal sexual harassment, sexual assaults, and threats of forced marriage,” the report found.
“Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon, as part of its broader strategy and with the goal of terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society, a finding with significant implications for international justice mechanisms,” the report’s authors write, outlining some “practical frameworks for achieving accountability.”
Among its recommendations, the report urges the international community to view conflict-related sexual violence as a distinct crime, different from everyday sexual offenses; to take into consideration “the systematic silencing of victims”; to utilize more diverse forms of admissible evidence, including eyewitness accounts and circumstantial evidence; and to apply joint criminal responsibility to all participants in the attack, rather than requiring direct links between individual perpetrators and specific acts and victims.
“We also seek to set the historical record straight: Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war,” the authors write, adding, “This report thus sets the stage for future criminal and other domestic and international proceedings against Hamas terrorists, leaders and collaborators.”
Israeli first lady Michal Herzog, who received The Dinah Project’s report on Tuesday, said in a statement that it “lays out the truth.”
“On behalf of all those harmed, we must continue to fight until their voices are heard everywhere and justice is served,” she declared, adding, “as a woman, a mother, and an Israeli, I read the reports with a broken heart… it challenges the global silence, replaces denial with facts, and calls on the world to recognize sexual violence as a crime against humanity and to prosecute those responsible.”