Thousands of people took to the streets Thursday night in dozens of Israeli cities in rejection of the gang rape reported by a minor, a heinous sexual assault that reflects the gaps in the effective protection of women in the State Jew. Although the investigation has been declared confidential, the Hebrew press revealed this Friday that about 30 men queued outside a hotel room to sexually force a 16-year-old girl who was under the influence of a alcohol poisoning.
The social upheaval has grown as details became known about the reported violation, which occurred last week in the resort city of Eilat, on the Red Sea coast, but did not transcend public opinion until Wednesday night. Two 27-year-old men have been detained as suspects by the police, who have created a special team of officers in light of the seriousness of the events and the high number of those involved.
The minor filed the complaint on August 14, 48 hours after the group rape had occurred, according to her statement. One of the suspects was arrested after having exchanged text messages with the victim who he warned that he had a video recording of everything that happened. Despite the secrecy that weighs on the proceedings, her public defender told the Israeli press that the man had denied "any connection to the events and was waiting for the police to examine the evidence."
Another of those arrested made it known to the media, through the lawyer assigned to him, that “he could not prevent approximately thirty men from having relations (against their will) with the minor, since he was afraid of them ”.
The girl had traveled to Eilat with a friend for a few days of vacation. In the city on the coast of the Gulf of Aqaba, in the southern tip of Israel, they met several well-known boys and girls with whom one night they met for drinks. At one point, the minor separated from the group to use a bathroom in a hotel room.
It was in that same room at the Red Sea Hotel that, according to her testimony, she was raped in turn by dozens of men. The Hebrew press maintains that the security cameras of the hotel establishment show images of men queuing in a hallway, waiting for the time to sexually force the girl. In the recording it is observed how some of them successively enter the room.
The clamor of rejection has spread to social networks, where accusations are multiplying against those responsible for the Eilat hotel for not having prevented the reported sexual assault. The establishment's management limited itself to ensuring that the events investigated by the police did not take place within the hotel grounds.
"We believe you"; "You are not alone," read some of the banners displayed in the massive protest marches called in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa and three dozen other Israeli cities. While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called gang rape a "crime against humanity", protesters held the government responsible for not adequately providing organizations that offer programs to prevent sexual assault and violence against women.
Of the more than 1,250 cases of gang rape reported in Israel over the past five years, the police have only opened 84 formal investigations, according to a report by the Association of Rape Women's Care Centers cited by the Haaretz newspaper. According to police statistics, 63% of the cases investigated in 2018 affected victims between the ages of 12 and 18. Nine out of ten proceedings opened by the prosecution are finally archived.
Despite the complexity of its social fabric, fragmented into sometimes watertight and antithetical compartments, Israel is a relatively advanced society in terms of sexual freedom, where a law has just entered into force that establishes fines for clients of prostitution and sex. LGTBIQ collective enjoys a freedom unmatched in the Middle East. The atrocious group rape denounced in Eilat, however, calls into question the validity of the measures to protect women against sexual violence and the consistency of the values in which sectors of the male population have been educated.