After dealing with the bodies of those killed in Hamas’s October 7 strikes on Israel, Israelis informed British MPs and peers that there was “no question” that some of the female victims had been sexually assaulted and that there had been “deliberate, systematic genital mutilation” of the victims. Minister for Women and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch declared that all of the reports needed to be thoroughly looked into and that sexual assault needed to be denounced. “Rape is not an act of resistance,” she said. During the attacks, Hamas has denied that its fighters sexually abused women.
However, a senior Israeli police official claimed that her department possessed “clear evidence” that rape and other sexual assaults were carried out on a significant enough scale to qualify as crimes. Hundreds of Palestinian gunmen from Gaza entered southern Israel on October 7th, killing almost 1,300 people—mostly civilians—and kidnapping 250 more. In response, Israel began a military operation in Gaza, which has killed over 26,900 people, the most of them women and children, according to the health ministry operated by Hamas.
As they listened to the Israelis’ evidence, several of the MPs and members of the House of Lords who were present at the hearing in Parliament on Wednesday started crying. The Israeli military called up architect Shari Mendes as a reserve to assist medics in identifying female corpses delivered to the Shura army base following October 7. “Many women arrived with bloody, shredded underwear, many arrived with no clothing,” she stated. “Our squad leader observed multiple female soldiers who had been shot in the breast, crotch, or vagina. This was unnecessary. This was a methodical, purposeful genital mutilation.” According to Ms. Mendes, her identification team had seen cases of victims with limbs severed or beheaded. Her words, “I’m here to be their voice,”
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