Israel Gaza: Hamas raped and mutilated women on 7 October, BBC hears
www.bbc.com
The BBC has seen and heard evidence that Hamas fighters committed horrific sexual violence in Israel.

The BBC has seen and heard evidence of rape, sexual violence and mutilation of women during the 7 October Hamas attacks.

WARNING: CONTAINS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE AND RAPE

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    64·
    11 months ago

    From my read of the article, there are basically no victim statements because the ostensible victims are either dead or non-communicative and under psychiatric care (in which case their testimony should be kept private until they are capable of choosing to share it.)

    I completely acknowledge that when people with guns are unleashed on a civilian populace, sexual assault is a frequent result. My issue is that with the willingness to publish unconfirmed accounts a lot of western media is functioning as propaganda for the hard right Israeli government.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zipEnglish
      73·
      11 months ago

      … Your response is literally “There are just a bunch of murdered and mutilated women with signs of trauma to their genitals. Since none of them can testify, no rape happened”

      Lemme guess? You play lacrosse, go to a country club, and back the blue?

      • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.netEnglish
        55·
        11 months ago

        Yup, you guessed it: my unwillingness to accept an oppressive police state’s presentation of events from another oppressive police state’s media wing is basically a vote for someone to the right of Pat Buchanan.

        Trauma happens in war zones. Hamas at the absolute best didn’t care about civilian casualties, and likely much worse, including fighters committing sexual assault of various forms. We’ve also seen massive shifts in the narrative of how the events of October 7 played out, including evidence that a large number of civilian casualties were caused by Israeli soldiers and not by Hamas fighters as was originally claimed.

        My issue with this piece is that it puts forth unconfirmed reports of horrific torture from people who admit they didn’t see it happen and admits that they have not confirmed the accounts. If they reported on video that the BBC had been able to authenticate, I wouldn’t have an issue with the narrative. But there’s been a huge amount of video people have posted that when analyzed is not from Gaza at all, or is not from October 7, so I tend to be skeptical of accounts that admit they haven’t been confirmed.