https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/12/witnesses-confirm-rape-beheadings-systematic-genital-mutilation-by-hamas/
‘Everything was an apocalypse of corpses,’ one official said, as Israel challenged the U.N.’s silence about Hamas’s crimes.
Witnesses to the brutal aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack presented new, graphic testimony about the group’s widespread use of rape, at a United Nations event today organized by Israel’s mission to the body — one of the most extensive public presentations on those, and other, atrocities yet.
This took place against the backdrop of a rapidly unfurling backlash against the U.N.’s laggard approach to acknowledging Hamas’s use of rape on October 7, with UN Women only condemning the assaults in a statement following public criticism and an interview in which an official struggled to unequivocally condemn the terrorist group. Last week, U.N. secretary-general António Guterres said in a statement on X that accounts of Hamas’s sexual violence need to be “vigorously investigated and prosecuted.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli authorities have deepened their investigation into sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas during the massacre. Hamas’s sexual crimes might also have played a role in its decision to break the cease-fire with Israel, with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller saying today that Hamas appears have chosen not to hand over several female hostages because “they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them.”
During today’s event, individuals directly involved in tending to the bodies of Hamas victims gave testimony about their experiences, and Israeli officials played videos featuring interrogations of Hamas fighters who acknowledged that members of the group raped victims and an interview with a woman who witnessed rape at the Nova music festival.
Yael Richert, chief superintendent of the Israeli Police’s Lahav 433 unit, described some of the horrifying testimony that her colleagues have gathered so far. Referring to an interview with a survivor of the Nova music festival, she said: “Everything was an apocalypse of corpses. Girls without any clothes on . . . without underwear. People cut in half, butchered, some were beheaded.
“There were girls with a broken pelvis, due to repetitive rapes. Their legs were spread wide apart in a split.” Other survivors said that girls were pulled out of shelters, raped, then burned.