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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Despite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide in Gaza</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Kareena Pannu</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">December 8, 2023<br></div>
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<img width="770" height="425" src="https://mondoweiss.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/i24-world-demands-proof-nov-19-youtube-1024x565.png" class="gmail-attachment-large gmail-size-large gmail-wp-post-image" alt="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)" title="Despite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide in Gaza">
<font size="1">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) </font>
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<p>After a lull, Israel’s allegations of sexual violence committed by Hamas have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181">returned</a> to international <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/17/world/israel-investigates-sexual-violence-hamas/index.html">headlines</a> with a vengeance. As the UN faces <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-activists-accuse-un-slow-response-accounts-hamas-rapes-rcna127995">heightened pressure</a>
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?</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forensic-teams-describe-signs-torture-abuse-2023-10-15/">forensic teams</a>. Indeed, the <em>Times of Israel</em> alleges that the IOF will <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/amid-war-and-urgent-need-to-id-bodies-evidence-of-hamass-october-7-rapes-slips-away/amp/"><em>never </em>provide forensic evidence</a>
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. </p>
<p>Presently, Israel’s case consists of one eyewitness testimony shown privately to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181">journalists</a>
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 <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/press-release/2019/09/israel-opt-legally-sanctioned-torture-of-palestinian-detainee-left-him-in-critical-condition/">torture</a> is <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2021/04/the-history-of-the-shin-bets-use-of-torture-and-what-it-says-about-israel-today/">notorious.</a>
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. </p><div id="gmail-mondo-ads-677461224">
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<p>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. </p>
<p>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 “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc5iG3DX7ho">conclusive evidence</a>”
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 “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-commission-investigate-hamas-sexual-violence-appeal-evidence-2023-11-29/">an anti-Israel bias</a>.” </p>
<blockquote><p>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.</p></blockquote>
<p>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 7<sup>th</sup> Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children,” and a law professor with a troubled history of human rights abuses and <a href="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/">close ties</a>
to the “National Security Council.” This narrative has been parroted by
the U.S. State Department, whose spokesperson, Matt Miller, <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5095918/state-dept-spokesperson-hamas-release-women-hostages-fearing-treatment-captivity">goes on to allege</a>
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.”</p>
<p>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<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/12/05/israel-hamas-palestine-news-latest-idf-raids-headquarters/"> tranquilized</a>
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 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-teen-speaks-hamas-captivity-with-her-dog-gaza-2023-12-06/">Mia Leimberg</a>, who emerged from captivity with her dog, Bella. Hostages’ experiences vary; while <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/29/freed-israeli-hostages-tell-families-of-ordeal-in-gaza-captivity">Daniel Aloni’s viral letter</a>
thanked Hamas for their treatment of her and her daughter, allegedly,
at a meeting between Israeli war cabinet members and released hostages,
an <a href="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">unnamed hostage</a>
recounted incidents of groping. However, the evidence to which we have
direct access, which includes footage of the hostages being released and
<a href="https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sklgqdshp">TikTok videos</a> posted by the released hostages, shows the hostages to be smiling and in reasonable condition.</p>
<blockquote><p>The latest propaganda effort signifies a desperation in the Israeli propaganda machine. </p></blockquote>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/10/palestinian-children-abused-in-israeli-detention-ngo">track record</a> on <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/9-out-of-10-rape-cases-in-israel-closed-without-charges-study/">rape</a>
and sexual abuse, and furthermore, its active censorship of human
rights groups investigating sexual assault abuses of Palestinian
children, which <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-ngo-shut-down-reporting-sexual-assault-ex-us">Josh Paul</a>, former director at the U.S Department of State, admitted to CNN. </p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/b111niukzt">news</a> organizations that <a href="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">complicate</a>
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 <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/a-growing-number-of-reports-indicate-israeli-forces-responsible-for-israeli-civilian-and-military-deaths-following-october-7-attack/">may have also caused the death of Israeli citizens</a>.</p>
<p>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 <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/12/5/israel-hamas-war-live-israeli-attacks-on-southern-gaza-reach-new-depths">exceeds 16,000</a>,
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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