File under Blinding Flash of the Obvious.
[IsraelTimes] Sex crimes official also says there’s ’clear evidence’ hostages faced and continue to face sexual assault in Gazoo...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
, says Oct. 7 victims suffered ’torture and other horrors’
The United Nation’s envoy on sex crimes during conflict presented a report Monday at the UN indicating that rape and gang rape likely occurred during the October 7 Hamas
...a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...onslaught against southern Israel, that "clear and convincing" evidence shows that hostages were raped while being held in Gaza, and that those currently held captive are still facing such abuse.
The 24-page report, based on more than two weeks of meetings on the ground, states that there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that Hamas committed rape and sexual abuse during its murderous rampage on October 7, and that there is an even higher standard of evidence to indicate that hostages kidnapped by Hamas that day were subject to rape in captivity.
Israel in response accused the UN of playing down the report and dragging its feet on looking into the allegations, while trying to silence the accusations — something the UN secretary general swiftly denied.
Presenting the report at a presser at UN Headquarters in New York, Pramila Patten, the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said that there was "clear and convincing information that sexual violence including rape, sexualized torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" was committed against hostages being held in captivity in the Strip by Hamas.
In addition, she said, there are "reasonable grounds" to believe that such violence is still ongoing against those hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
"The mission was a difficult one in terms of what we heard and the details," said Patten at the presser. "We saw a catalog of the most extreme and inhumane forms of torture and other horrors," she said, noting that her mission "was neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature."
The team said a "fully-fledged investigation" would be required to establish the overall magnitude, scope and specific attribution for the sexual violence.
Patten said that she visited Israel and the West Bank for 2.5 weeks, meeting with representatives of 33 Israeli institutions as well as 34 individuals, including survivors and witnesses, released hostages, first responders and others. She noted that she did not meet with any survivor of sexual violence, saying that she was told the small number of living survivors are undergoing "specialized trauma treatment" and are unable to discuss their experiences.
Her team also viewed 5,000 photographic images and "some 50 hours of footage" of the attacks. Due to the ongoing conflict, she said, she did not request to also visit Gaza.
Patten said that based on her evidence-gathering, there are reasonable grounds to believe that "rape and gang rape" occurred during the October 7 attacks in at least three locations: the Supernova music festival site, Kibbutz Re’im, and along the nearby Route 232.
In most such instances, she said, evidence shows that victims were "first subjected to rape and then killed," noting as well "two incidents" pointing to the rape of women’s corpses.
The music festival grounds, Patten said, was the site of "brutal mass murders," noting that many bodies were found extensively burned or disfigured, and that there was also a "recurring pattern of victims found fully or partially undressed, bound and shot."
Patten noted that "some allegations" of sexual violence from Kibbutz Be’eri were determined to be unfounded, including a story about a pregnant woman’s fetus being cut out of her body, while other allegations could simply not be verified.
She added that interviews in the West Bank of both male and female Paleostinian detainees, pointed to "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment by Israeli security forces, including "sexual violence in the forms of body searches [and] threats of rape."
In response to the report, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan lambasted the international body for taking so long to recognize what happened on the Gaza periphery.
"It took the UN five months to finally recognize the horrifying sex crimes that occurred during the Hamas on onslaught of October 7," Erdan said in a statement. "Now that the report of the sexual atrocities and abuse that our hostages are going through in Gaza is being released, the shame of the silence of the UN — which is not even holding one hearing on the issue — is crying out to the heavens."
Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he was calling Erdan back to Israel for discussions on how to move forward, due to the UN’s "silencing" of the issue.
Katz slammed UN chief António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...
for not calling for a meeting of the UN Security Council "to declare Hamas a terror group and place sanctions on its supporters." He said Israel had yet to hear "one word" from the UN chief over the report, adding: "Guterres, wake up."
Guterres’s front man denied that he was attempting to suppress the report.
"The work was done thoroughly and expeditiously. In no way, shape, or form did the secretary-general do anything to keep the report ’quiet.’ In fact, the report is being presented publicly today," Stephane Dujarric told AFP.
Israel has railed at international women’s groups that ignored evidence of Hamas’s weaponization of sexual violence during the attacks.
It took about eight weeks for UN Women, a women’s rights group under the tutelage of the UN, to post, and shortly thereafter delete, a condemnation of the October 7 onslaught itself.
Another week would go by before the agency registered the existence of "disturbing reports of gender-based and sexual violence on October 7."
The delayed response sparked outrage among Jewish and Israeli feminist groups, rallying to the hashtag "#MeToo_UNless_UR_A_Jew" and charging the UN body’s silence was motivated by antisemitism.
The campaign gained traction by December, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United States President Joe
The Big GuyBiden
...46th president of the U.S. ‘This Is A Man ThatDoes Not Seem Demented’...
both publicly castigating international women’s groups for ignoring mounting evidence that Hamas had used rape as a weapon of war. Later that month, the New York Times
...which still proudly displays Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
ran a damning report on the extent of sexual violence during the October 7 attacks.