We didn't need more evidence to discover the brutality of the October 7 Hamas attack, but a huge investigation published tonight by The New York Times presents descriptions and testimonies of violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against young Israeli women – and the head refuses to grasp.
In the following lines we will present the main points of the investigation, and this is the time to warn: The text contains extremely harsh descriptions of violence.
The newspaper's reporters interviewed more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical teams and sexual assault therapists, and identified seven locations where Israeli women and girls were raped and subjected to horrific abuse. The investigation determined that the assault on the women was not isolated incidents but part of a pattern of gender-based violence.
Times reporters heard testimonies of the discovery of more than 30 bodies of women and girls in the Nova Party area and near the site, legs spread, clothes torn and signs of violence visible in their genital area.
The newspaper tells of photographs of a woman's body, found in the ruins of a kibbutz, with dozens of nails in her thighs and groin. A video provided to The Times by the IDF Spokesperson shows two female soldiers shot in the holster.
The party site in Reim. Rape assembly line", photo: Oren Ben Hakon
The newspaper cites the testimony of Sapir, a 24-year-old accountant who became one of the police's main witnesses. Sapir told the newspaper that she saw Hamas militants rape and murder at least five women. At eight o'clock on the morning of October 7, she hid in vegetation along the edge of Route 232, about six kilometers from the party site in Re'im. During the attack, she was shot in the back, but managed to cover herself with dry grass and lie motionless as much as possible.
About 15 meters away, she watched a gathering of about 100 armed men getting in and out of cars. They stood by the road, passing rifles, grenades, missiles – and wounded women. "It was like an assembly line," Sapir recalls. The first victim was a young redhead, with blood gushing from her back. According to Sapir, her pants were rolled up below the knees. During the rape, the attacker stabbed her in the back.
Another woman was raped – and in the process, one of the terrorists amputated her breast. "They played with the demon, passed it to each other, and then it fell into the road," Sapir described. According to her, the victim was simply cut and dismembered. Three other women who were raped were beheaded.
Since that day, Sapir said, she has suffered from a rash on her upper body and can barely sleep, wandering at night, her heart pounding. "That day I became an animal," she said. "Emotionally, I was disconnected. Sharp. Just adrenaline to survive. I looked at it all as if I were photographing them with my own eyes, not to forget any details. I said to myself: I have to remember everything."
Raz Cohen hid at another point, in a dry stream channel near the road. At one point he saw Van Lavan stop and his doors open. They were all dressed as civilians, they all had knives and one had a hammer, and they dragged a young woman without clothes, screaming for her life. "They gathered around her and raped her. She shouted wordlessly. I remember her voice. Then one of them brandished a knife and they just slaughtered it."
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