[News] Despite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide in Gaza

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/despite-lack-of-evidence-allegations-of-hamas-mass-rape-are-fueling-israeli-genocide-in-gaza/?ml_recipient=107095374966032299&ml_link=107095298893940202&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2023-12-09&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation>
Despite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling
Israeli genocide in Gaza
Kareena Pannu
December 8, 2023
------------------------------
[image: Screenshot from video on i24 English youtube channel, in which Orit
Sulitzeanu (left) of the Israeli Association of Rape Crisis Centers
condemns demands for evidence of the Hamas "mass rape" allegations. (Photo:
Screenshot)] Screenshot from video on i24 English youtube channel, in which
Orit Sulitzeanu (left) of the Israeli Association of Rape Crisis Centers
condemns demands for evidence of the Hamas “mass rape” allegations. (Photo:
Screenshot)

After a lull, Israel’s allegations of sexual violence committed by Hamas
have returned <https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181> to
international headlines
<https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/17/world/israel-investigates-sexual-violence-hamas/index.html>
with a vengeance. As the UN faces heightened pressure
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-activists-accuse-un-slow-response-accounts-hamas-rapes-rcna127995>
to condemn Hamas’s alleged sexual violence, the sudden onslaught of media
and international attention nearly two months after October 7 begs the
question, why now?

Indeed, narratives of sexual violence have not only resurged, but they have
done so with vim. Lurid stories of gang rape, mutilation, and even
necrophilia, have been disseminated by the media. This has occurred despite
there being no substantive developments in evidence of sexual assaults from
the Israeli occupation forces. Israel has repeatedly failed to provide
forensic evidence, concrete photographic evidence, or victim testimonies to
news organizations beyond inferences made by Israel’s forensic teams
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forensic-teams-describe-signs-torture-abuse-2023-10-15/>.
Indeed, the *Times of Israel* alleges that the IOF will *never *provide
forensic evidence
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-war-and-urgent-need-to-id-bodies-evidence-of-hamass-october-7-rapes-slips-away/amp/>
because “physical evidence of sexual assault was not collected from corpses
by Israel’s overtaxed morgue facilities,” and it is now, reportedly, too
late to collect conclusive evidence.

Presently, Israel’s case consists of one eyewitness testimony shown
privately to journalists
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181> by the Israeli
police, witness testimonies of “body collectors,” forensic teams, and army
staff, photographs taken at sites that suggest women may have been sexually
assaulted, and witness testimonies of Hamas fighters acquired from Shin
Bet, whose use of torture
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/09/israel-opt-legally-sanctioned-torture-of-palestinian-detainee-left-him-in-critical-condition/>
is notorious.
<https://mondoweiss.net/2021/04/the-history-of-the-shin-bets-use-of-torture-and-what-it-says-about-israel-today/>
Testimonies of victims will not be shared; the police have not interviewed
any surviving victims, and according to May Golan, Israel’s Women’s
Empowerment Minister, the very few victims who survived are receiving
psychiatric treatment and are therefore, conveniently, unable to talk.

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It’s a far cry from the persistent efforts of the Palestinians, forced to
film their murdered relatives, their burnt and mutilated children, and
their friends and families in their most vulnerable moments of grief, all
in a desperate attempt to show the world what is being inflicted upon them.
Perhaps that is what privilege looks like, where the dignity of Israeli
victims is preserved, and the dignity of Palestinian victims must be
discarded in a desperate voyeuristic attempt to publicize their suffering,
starkly aware that the survival of the Palestinian people depends on this.

Israel’s secrecy remains deafening; the IOF exclusively screened a
47-minute compilation of “raw footage” to invited journalists, as opposed
to sharing the footage with news agencies to report on and verify
independently (Al Jazeera journalists, notably, were not invited to
attend). Amongst those invited, journalist Owen Jones saw no “conclusive
evidence <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc5iG3DX7ho>” for torture, sexual
violence, rape, or beheadings. Furthermore, despite calling on the UN to
condemn Hamas’s acts of sexual violence, Israel refuses to cooperate with a
UN commission of inquiry into sexual violence committed by Hamas on the
ludicrous basis that the UN has “an anti-Israel bias
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-commission-investigate-hamas-sexual-violence-appeal-evidence-2023-11-29/>
.”

Despite deficient evidence, Israel has renewed its allegations of acts of
sexual violence committed by Hamas, only with a new spin; they were now
part of a systematic, concerted tactic of mass rape.

Nevertheless, despite deficient evidence, Israel has renewed its
allegations of acts of sexual violence committed by Hamas, only with a new
spin; they were now part of a systematic, concerted tactic of mass rape, as
alleged by Dr. Elkayam-Levy, head of “The Civil Commission on October 7th
Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children,” and a law professor with a
troubled history of human rights abuses and close ties
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/cnn-report-claiming-sexual-violence-on-october-7-relied-on-non-credible-witnesses-some-with-undisclosed-ties-to-israeli-govt/>
to the “National Security Council.” This narrative has been parroted by the
U.S. State Department, whose spokesperson, Matt Miller, goes on to allege
<https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5095918/state-dept-spokesperson-hamas-release-women-hostages-fearing-treatment-captivity>
that “one of the reasons [Hamas] don’t want to turn women over that they’ve
been holding hostage, and the reason this pause fell apart, is they don’t
want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during
their time in custody.”

Conversely, in the absence of concrete evidence of sexual assaults, what
can we know about how Hamas treats women? Arguably, the hostages provide us
the clearest evidence of Hamas’s comportment towards women, as we have
direct footage of their release. The Israeli government has, rather
absurdly, alleged that the hostages were tranquilized
<https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/05/israel-hamas-palestine-news-latest-idf-raids-headquarters/>
upon their release, in an effort to explain their friendly goodbyes to
members of Hamas, which included handshakes, jokes, and smiles. The
majority of the hostages have not yet been publicly interviewed, except Mia
Leimberg
<https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-teen-speaks-hamas-captivity-with-her-dog-gaza-2023-12-06/>,
who emerged from captivity with her dog, Bella. Hostages’ experiences vary;
while Daniel Aloni’s viral letter
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/29/freed-israeli-hostages-tell-families-of-ordeal-in-gaza-captivity>
thanked Hamas for their treatment of her and her daughter, allegedly, at a
meeting between Israeli war cabinet members and released hostages, an unnamed
hostage
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-12-05/ty-article/.premium/freed-hostages-tell-war-cabinet-that-hamas-held-captives-suffered-hunger-sexual-assault/0000018c-3abd-dc03-a9ec-3efff69c0000>
recounted incidents of groping. However, the evidence to which we have
direct access, which includes footage of the hostages being released and TikTok
videos <https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sklgqdshp> posted by the released
hostages, shows the hostages to be smiling and in reasonable condition.

The latest propaganda effort signifies a desperation in the Israeli
propaganda machine.

The latest propaganda effort signifies a desperation in the Israeli
propaganda machine. Activists and journalists have rightly pointed out how
the Israeli government has weaponized sexual assault allegations, deriving
from ulterior motives rather than a place of genuine concern for women and
children given Israel’s own horrific track record
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/10/palestinian-children-abused-in-israeli-detention-ngo>
on rape
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/9-out-of-10-rape-cases-in-israel-closed-without-charges-study/>
and sexual abuse, and furthermore, its active censorship of human rights
groups investigating sexual assault abuses of Palestinian children, which Josh
Paul
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-ngo-shut-down-reporting-sexual-assault-ex-us>,
former director at the U.S Department of State, admitted to CNN.

The U.S. State Department’s toothless allegation that the ceasefire ended
because of Hamas’s barbaric desires towards women lacks credibility.
However, the manufacture and escalation of a sensationalist media storm
around October 7 allowed the Israeli government to reassert its hegemony
over narratives surrounding events on that day. The wild descriptions of
Hamas’s assaults re-center Hamas, thereby detracting from emerging
investigations by news <https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b111niukzt>
organizations that complicate
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-18/ty-article/.premium/israeli-security-establishment-hamas-likely-didnt-have-prior-knowledge-of-nova-festival/0000018b-e2ee-d168-a3ef-f7fe8ca20000>
the Israeli government’s account of a ruthless Hamas-led attack and probe
the IOF’s complicity in slaughtering Israeli civilians, suggesting the
IOF’s indiscriminate assault upon Hamas may have also caused the death of
Israeli citizens
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/a-growing-number-of-reports-indicate-israeli-forces-responsible-for-israeli-civilian-and-military-deaths-following-october-7-attack/>
.

In addition, emphasizing the brutality and inhumanity of Hamas’s attacks on
October 7 increasingly serves to legitimize Israeli revenge. Israel’s
assault lacks any semblance of proportionality, as the death toll exceeds
16,000
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/5/israel-hamas-war-live-israeli-attacks-on-southern-gaza-reach-new-depths>,
and widespread graphic videos document, extensively and in detail, the
annihilation of Palestinians, including the incineration of infants and
toddlers. Exaggerating the inhumanity of the Hamas attacks suggests there
is an equivalency of the Israeli response; though not in scale, it purports
to suggest Israel’s assault is equal in nature and brutality, and
therefore, revenge upon a population of 2.2 million people is logical.

But it extends further than that. The reliance on lazy Orientalist
caricatures of Arab men as savage sexual predators is both cunning and
destructive. The implication that brutality and sexual depravity are
intrinsic characteristics of Arab men and Arab people suggests that
Palestinians are, inherently and irredeemably, an evil race, and their
total annihilation, therefore, is justifiable. Manufacturing consent for a
genocide works only when the genocide of a people is not regarded as a
loss, and the eradication of their culture, their history, and their
humanity is an act that renders the world a better place. The
stigmatization and dehumanization of indigenous men and men of color is not
new. It is an agenda that is all too familiar, and we must resist it.
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