"Attention to the pain of Palestinian women in Gaza does not exclude the Israelis and what they suffered on 7 October: raped, killed, burned, reduced to ashes. I hope that on 8 March all Italian and European women's and feminist associations will remember together the suffering of both. One does not exclude the other".
These are the words of the Israeli historian
Tamar Herzig
, university professor of history and gender violence in the early modern European age who met with Italian journalists in Rome.
"The rapes that occurred on October 7 are continuing in Gaza against women and girls hostages. Until the people held captive in the Strip return home, the Israelis will remain stuck in the nightmare of October 7," Herzig said.
That she wanted to underline that she is not part of the Israeli government, of which as a citizen she is only waiting for it to fall, and that she is loudly asking like many for the war in Gaza to end.
"After October 7, I went to several funerals of the victims. One was for a former student of mine, who was burned alive together with her husband in the Kfar Aza kibbutz. It was only a ceremony of remembrance, it was not possible to bury her because of that there were no physical remains of the girl, nothing other than a little ash. Only a complicated DNA test that lasted three weeks allowed her to be identified", said Herzig, "this is why I say that the tragedy that is happening in Gaza does not legitimize the silence on Israeli victims and denial of mass rape as a weapon of war".
And she insisted: "Given what happened on the day of the massacre, the request for immediate evidence and direct testimonies from the raped women (mostly killed after the violence) appear cynical and cruel to me."
And you recalled that when the rescuers were able to enter the places attacked by the terrorists, they found themselves faced with piles of corpses.
Which first of all needed to be identified.
In the chaos, not many findings were made about the women raped, mutilated in their private parts and killed.
And today there is a lack of evidence in numerous cases.
"When we talk about feminicides and violence we know that years may pass before a woman is able to tell. Or maybe never. Talking only about forensic evidence is absurd. And in any case the terrorists have published their videos of the rapes...".
The meeting with Tamar Herzig was held just after the publication of the UN report in which it was declared that there are "good reasons to believe" that there had been sexual violence, including rape, during the Hamas attacks on 7 October .
In a statement, UN Special Representative for Sexual Violence Pramila Patten added that there are also reasonable grounds to believe that "such violence, including other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment", may continue against people again held by Hamas and other extremists in the Gaza Strip.
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