Israeli investigators investigating the fallout from the brutal October 7 attacks have found evidence that both men and women were victims of sexual violence and rape at the hands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad attackers, activists claim.
Yael Sherer, a spokeswoman for the Israeli advocacy group Survivors of Sexual Violence, said there was both physical evidence and eyewitness accounts of sexual violence against both genders during the attacks.
There was sexual violence and rape in these communities in southern Israel… we have a few living survivors – not many – of both genders. It didn't just happen to women, it happened to men too,” Yael Sherer told BBC Radio 4.
“Apart from finding bodies of people who were murdered, many of the bodies were mutilated… terrorists made sure to shame and dishonor these people,” she added.
It comes as Israeli police opened the country's largest ever investigation into sexual violence and crimes against women.
The investigation's leader, Shelly Harush, said: 'It is now clear that sex crimes were part of the planning and that the aim was to frighten and humiliate people.'
Police have collected thousands of statements, photos and video clips that are said to be unbearable to watch from a mother's perspective, including “girls whose pelvises were broken and raped so many times.”
An Israeli officer walks the ground of the Super Nova Festival in Re'im, Israel, October 17, 2023, which was attacked by Hamas on October 7
After the attacks, a pile of bodies is seen among the rubble at the Nova festival
Sigal Manzuri, whose daughters, Norelle and Roya, were killed while attending the Nova Festival, hugs family friend Lior Goldstein, in tribute to the people killed during the October 7 attack by Hamas gunmen from Gaza, at the site of the scale. Nova Festival in Southern Israel, November 28, 2023
Revelers flee the Supernova Peace Festival during the October 7 attacks that killed more than 1,200 Israelis
Abandoned and torched vehicles at the site of the October 7 attack on the Supernova Desert Music Festival in southern Israel
Personal belongings left behind by Israelis in the aftermath of an attack that killed more than 260 people during a music festival on October 7, near Re'im, Israel
Yoni Saadon, 39, a participant in the Nova music festival massacre who survived by hiding under dead bodies, gave a harrowing account this weekend of the sexual violence he saw taking place against women at the campsite.
One gruesome scene he described was the moment a woman's decapitated head rolled across the road after she had been beheaded for refusing to undress.
As the sun rose during the desert festival and Hamas terrorists stormed in, Yoni took cover under a music stage. But a woman hiding next to him was identified by terrorists.
“She fell to the ground, shot in the head, and I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it looked like I was dead too,” he said. The Sunday times.
'I'll never forget her face. Every night I wake up with it and apologize to her by saying, 'I'm sorry.'
After an hour the team leader peeked outside. “I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her.”
The woman screamed “stop it,” he said, and begged the terrorists to kill her to put her out of her misery.
“When they were done, they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head,” he said.
The father of four admitted that his mind kept reminding him that it could have been one of his daughters, or his sister, who left the festival at the last minute.
The horror was far from over for Yoni when he saw two more Hamas fighters capturing a woman, hiding in the bushes.
“She fought back and wouldn't let them undress her,” he recalls. “They threw her on the ground and one of the terrorists took a shovel and decapitated her and her head rolled on the ground.
“I see that head too,” he admitted.
Yoni shared his story with The Sunday Times at a support group for festival survivors in Sitria, southeast of Tel Aviv.
Three times a week, survivors from all over Israel gather with parents whose children were among the victims.
The volunteer therapists included Bar Yuval-Shani, 58, who lost her only sister, Deborah, and brother-in-law, Shlomi Matias, both musicians and peace activists, killed in the Holit kibbutz by militants who broke into their safe room.
Festival goers flee the outdoor party after Hamas launched airstrikes and rampaged through the site with assault rifles. The identities of alleged victims in the sexual assault investigation have not been shared by Israeli police
According to the Israeli army, Hamas fighters bypassed Israel's border with the Gaza Strip by flying in with a paraglider (photo: an alleged paraglider entering Israel)
Student Noa Argamani sits on the back of a terrorist's motorcycle, her outstretched arms pointing to her helpless friend, pleading for her life
Yoni Saadon's story is one of many rape testimonies Yuval-Shani has heard from festival survivors, all of whom, she says, are “deeply traumatized.”
Eight weeks after the attack that killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostage, there is mounting evidence of widespread rape on October 7.
According to those tasked with removing lifeless bodies from the slaughter sites, many women were left naked with severe signs of bleeding from their genitals.
Haim Outmezgine, commander of a Zaka special unit that collects the remains of bodies, said: “We collected a thousand bodies in ten days from the festival grounds and kibbutzim. No one has seen more than us.
“It was clear that they were trying to spread as much horror as possible – to kill, to burn alive, to rape… it seemed like their mission was to rape as many people as possible.”
David Katz, head of the Lahav 443 criminal investigation unit, did not give a precise figure on the number of cases under investigation, but said the investigation could last “six to eight months.”