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
    117·
    1 year ago

    You’re getting downvoted but the piece states “The BBC could not independently verify this account.”

    One of the quotes is someone saying they didn’t see the violent attack but sexual assault just sounds different.

    Any reasonable person can agree that Hamas is not good, we don’t need propaganda making them appear like complete monsters.

    • NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zipEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Yes. That is reporting. Especially in the wake of outlets jumping the gun on a lot of other aspects of this.

      But if you read through the rest of the article, they reference

      Videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack, and photographs of bodies taken at the sites afterwards, suggest that women were sexually targeted by their attackers.

      Videos filmed by Hamas include footage of one woman, handcuffed and taken hostage with cuts to her arms and a large patch of blood staining the seat of her trousers.

      In others, women carried away by the fighters appear to be naked or semi-clothed.

      Multiple photographs from the sites after the attack show the bodies of women naked from the waist down, or with their underwear ripped to one side, legs splayed, with signs of trauma to their genitals and legs.

      Even if you believe that there is a focused effort to plant government agents at every single level and with multiple aide organizations all to promote some evil conspiracy: The above is footage and images that reporters (and civilians who click the wrong links online…) have seen.

      So yes, it is mostly circumstantial evidence (which, regardless of what tv lawyers say, still has validity) indicating violent trauma and tearing of clothes of women’s genital regions. Combine that with the sad truth that men given guns and power and unleashed on civilian populations tend to commit rape and… there is a lot of evidence of rape.

      And if you believe any of the witness and victim accounts (that were also given to non-Israeli sources) then it is truly horrific and… on par with what ISIS/ISIL do on a daily basis. Which makes sense considering the speculation that Iran is heavily involved in all of this.

      • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.netEnglish
        54·
        1 year 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
          72·
          1 year 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
            45·
            1 year 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.