By Emily Rose
JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli researchers released a report on Tuesday detailing sexual assault allegations against Palestinian Hamas fighters who attacked Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, and offering a “legal blueprint” for potential prosecutions.
The Bar-Ilan University report cites at least 17 witnesses testifying to at least 15 separate cases of sexual assault, including gang rape and mutilation of sexual organs. It cites numerous instances of bodies found partially or fully naked, some handcuffed to poles or trees, and bodies with gunshots to the genitalia and other genital mutilation.
Accounts of sexual assault committed by Hamas militants on October 7 have been documented widely. Several hostages released from Hamas captivity said they witnessed and experienced acts of assault, including forced penetration, by their captors.
Hamas has consistently denied allegations of sexual assault. Hamas official Bassem Naim said the report was “not worth commenting” on.
Reuters could not independently verify the evidence referenced in the report.
The document, authored by three experts in law and gender, lays out a legal framework for prosecution of those responsible, even when “direct attribution to individuals is impossible.” The report draws from forensic and visual evidence, witness testimony and audio recordings.
In March, UN experts said in a report that Israel had used sexual violence as a war strategy in Gaza, allegations Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected as biased and antisemitic.
The authors of the Bar-Ilan University document presented the report to Israel’s first lady Michal Herzog on Tuesday.
They said they aimed to prompt domestic and international legal action by identifying legal doctrines that can be used to “unlock actual court cases” by showing how they fit into international mechanisms.
“Our aim is to be able to convince the (United Nations) secretary-general to include Hamas in the blacklist of those entities of those countries … that condone the use of sexual violence as a tool of war,” Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, founding member of the university’s Dinah Project, told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the Bar-Ilan University report.
A U.N. Commission of Inquiry into sexual assault on October 7 found that Israeli women were subjected “to gender-based violence such as physical, sexual and psychological violence, including threats of such acts, coercion and arbitrary deprivation of liberty.”
The U.N. said Israeli officials refused to cooperate with its investigation and “that the information gathered by the mission team was in a large part sourced from Israeli national institutions.”
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said in April last year that victims of the October 7 attacks would never get justice from the UN commission and its members, adding that the commission had a track record of antisemitic, anti-Israel statements.
(Reporting by Emily Rose, additional reporting by Michal Yaakov Itzhaki, Ali Sawafta and Emma Farge; Editing by Howard Goller)
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