‘Screams With out Phrases’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7

At first, she was identified merely as “the girl within the black gown.”

In a grainy video, you possibly can see her, mendacity on her again, gown torn, legs unfold, vagina uncovered. Her face is burned past recognition, and her proper hand covers her eyes.

The video was shot within the early hours of Oct. 8 by a girl looking for a lacking buddy on the web site of the rave in southern Israel the place, the day earlier than, Hamas terrorists massacred a whole bunch of younger Israelis.

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The video went viral, with hundreds of individuals responding, determined to know if the girl within the black gown was their lacking buddy, sister or daughter.

One household knew precisely who she was: Gal Abdush, mom of two from a working-class city in central Israel, who disappeared from the rave that night time together with her husband.

Because the terrorists closed in on her, trapped on a freeway in a line of vehicles of individuals making an attempt to flee the occasion, she despatched one last WhatsApp message to her household: “You don’t perceive.”

Based mostly largely on the video proof — which was verified by The New York Occasions — Israeli police officers mentioned they believed that Abdush was raped, and she or he has turn into an emblem of the horrors visited upon Israeli girls and women through the Oct. 7 assaults.

Israeli officers say that in all places Hamas terrorists struck — the rave, the army bases alongside the Gaza Strip border and the kibbutzim — they brutalized girls.

A two-month investigation by the Occasions uncovered painful new particulars, establishing that the assaults in opposition to girls weren’t remoted occasions however a part of a broader sample of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.

Counting on video footage, pictures, GPS information from cell phones and interviews with greater than 150 individuals, together with witnesses, medical personnel, troopers and rape counselors, the Occasions recognized at the very least seven areas the place Israeli girls and women seem to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.

4 witnesses described in graphic element seeing girls raped and killed at two totally different locations alongside Route 232, the identical freeway the place Abdush’s half-naked physique was discovered sprawled on the street at a 3rd location.

And the Occasions interviewed a number of troopers and volunteer medics who collectively described discovering greater than 30 our bodies of girls and women in and across the rave web site and in two kibbutzim in the same state as Abdush’s — legs unfold, garments torn off, indicators of abuse of their genital areas.

Lots of the accounts are troublesome to bear, and the visible proof is disturbing to see.

The Occasions considered pictures of 1 girl’s corpse that emergency responders found within the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails pushed into her thighs and groin.

The Occasions additionally considered a video, supplied by the Israeli army, exhibiting two lifeless Israeli troopers at a base close to Gaza who appeared to have been shot instantly of their vaginas.

Hamas has denied Israel’s accusations of sexual violence. Israeli activists have been outraged that U.N. Secretary-Basic António Guterres and the company U.N. Ladies didn’t acknowledge the numerous accusations till weeks after the assaults.

Investigators with Israel’s high nationwide police unit, Lahav 433, have been steadily gathering proof, however they haven’t put a quantity on what number of girls had been raped, saying that the majority are lifeless — and buried — and that they’ll by no means know. No survivors have spoken publicly.

Israeli police have acknowledged that through the shock and confusion of Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israeli historical past, they weren’t targeted on amassing semen samples from girls’s our bodies, requesting autopsies or carefully inspecting crime scenes. At that second, authorities mentioned, they had been intent on repelling Hamas and figuring out the lifeless.

A mix of chaos, monumental grief and Jewish spiritual duties meant that many our bodies had been buried as rapidly as doable. Most had been by no means examined, and in some circumstances, like on the rave scene, the place greater than 360 individuals had been slaughtered in just a few hours, the our bodies had been hauled away by the truckload.

That has left Israeli authorities at a loss to totally clarify to households what occurred to their family members of their last moments. Abdush’s relations, as an example, by no means acquired a demise certificates. They’re nonetheless looking for solutions.

In circumstances of widespread sexual violence throughout a struggle, it isn’t uncommon to have restricted forensic proof, specialists mentioned.

“Armed battle is so chaotic,” mentioned Adil Haque, a Rutgers regulation professor and struggle crimes knowledgeable. “Individuals are extra targeted on their security than on constructing a felony case down the street.”

Fairly often, he mentioned, intercourse crime circumstances can be prosecuted years afterward the premise of testimony from victims and witnesses.

“The eyewitness may not even know the identify of the sufferer,” he added. “But when they’ll testify as, ‘I noticed a girl being raped by this armed group,’ that may be sufficient.”

‘Screams With out Phrases’

Sapir, a 24-year-old accountant, has turn into one of many Israeli police’s key witnesses. She doesn’t wish to be absolutely recognized, saying she can be hounded for the remainder of her life if her final identify had been revealed.

She attended the rave with a number of buddies and supplied investigators with graphic testimony. She additionally spoke to the Occasions. In a two-hour interview outdoors a restaurant in southern Israel, she recounted seeing teams of closely armed gunmen rape and kill at the very least 5 girls.

She mentioned that at 8 a.m. Oct. 7, she was hiding beneath the low branches of a bushy tamarisk tree, simply off Route 232, about 4 miles southwest of the occasion. She had been shot within the again. She felt faint. She coated herself in dry grass and lay as nonetheless as she might.

About 50 toes from her hiding place, she mentioned, she noticed bikes, vehicles and vehicles pulling up. She mentioned that she noticed “about 100 males,” most of them wearing army fatigues and fight boots, just a few in darkish sweatsuits, getting out and in of the automobiles. She mentioned the lads congregated alongside the street and handed amongst them assault rifles, grenades, small missiles — and badly wounded girls.

“It was like an meeting level,” she mentioned.

The primary sufferer she mentioned she noticed was a younger girl with copper-color hair, blood operating down her again, pants pushed all the way down to her knees. One man pulled her by the hair and made her bend over. One other penetrated her, Sapir mentioned, and each time she flinched, he plunged a knife into her again.

She mentioned she then watched one other girl “shredded into items.” Whereas one terrorist raped her, she mentioned, one other pulled out a field cutter and sliced off her breast.

“One continues to rape her, and the opposite throws her breast to another person, and so they play with it, throw it, and it falls on the street,” Sapir mentioned.

She mentioned the lads sliced her face, after which the girl fell out of view. Across the similar time, she mentioned, she noticed three different girls raped and terrorists carrying the severed heads of three extra girls.

Sapir supplied pictures of her hiding place and her wounds, and police officers have stood by her testimony and launched a video of her, together with her face blurred, recounting a few of what she noticed.

Yura Karol, a 22-year-old safety marketing consultant, mentioned he was hiding in the identical spot, and he might be seen in certainly one of Sapir’s photographs. He and Sapir had been a part of a gaggle of buddies who had met up on the occasion. In an interview, Karol mentioned he barely lifted his head to take a look at the street, however he additionally described seeing a girl raped and killed.

Since that day, Sapir mentioned, she has struggled with a painful rash that unfold throughout her torso, and she will be able to barely sleep, waking up at night time, coronary heart pounding, coated in sweat.

“That day, I turned an animal,” she mentioned. “I used to be emotionally indifferent, sharp, simply the adrenaline of survival. I checked out all this as if I used to be photographing them with my eyes, not forgetting any element. I informed myself: I ought to keep in mind all the things.”

That very same morning, alongside Route 232 however in a unique location about 1 mile southwest of the occasion space, Raz Cohen — a younger Israeli who had additionally attended the rave and had labored not too long ago in Congo coaching Congolese troopers — mentioned that he was hiding in a dried-up streambed. It supplied some cowl from the assailants combing the world and taking pictures anybody they discovered, he mentioned in a 1 1/2-hour interview in a Tel Aviv, Israel, restaurant.

Possibly 40 yards in entrance of him, he recalled, a white van pulled up, and its doorways flew open.

He mentioned he then noticed 5 males, sporting civilian garments, all carrying knives and one carrying a hammer, dragging a girl throughout the bottom. She was younger, bare and screaming.

“All of them collect round her,” Cohen mentioned. “She’s standing up. They begin raping her. I noticed the lads standing in a half circle round her. One penetrates her. She screams. I nonetheless keep in mind her voice, screams with out phrases.

“Then certainly one of them raises a knife,” he mentioned, “and so they simply slaughtered her.”

Shoam Gueta, certainly one of Cohen’s buddies and a clothier, mentioned the 2 had been hiding collectively within the streambed. He mentioned he noticed at the very least 4 males step out of the van and assault the girl, who ended up “between their legs.” He mentioned that they had been “speaking, guffawing and shouting” and that certainly one of them stabbed her with a knife repeatedly, “actually butchering her.”

Hours later, the primary wave of volunteer emergency medical technicians arrived on the rave web site. In interviews, 4 of them mentioned that they found our bodies of lifeless girls with their legs unfold and underwear lacking — some with their palms tied by rope and zip ties — within the occasion space, alongside the street, within the parking space and within the open fields across the rave web site.

Jamal Waraki, a volunteer medic with the nonprofit ZAKA emergency response staff, mentioned he couldn’t get out of his head a younger girl in a rawhide vest discovered between the primary stage and the bar.

“Her palms had been tied behind her again,” he mentioned. “She was bent over, half bare, her underwear rolled down under her knees.”

Yinon Rivlin, a member of the rave’s manufacturing staff who misplaced two brothers within the assaults, mentioned that after hiding from the killers, he emerged from a ditch and made his strategy to the parking space, east of the occasion, alongside Route 232, on the lookout for survivors.

Close to the freeway, he mentioned, he discovered the physique of a younger girl, on her abdomen, no pants or underwear, legs unfold aside. He mentioned her vagina space appeared to have been sliced open, “as if somebody tore her aside.”

Comparable discoveries had been made in two kibbutzim, Be’eri and Kfar Aza. Eight volunteer medics and two Israeli troopers informed the Occasions that in at the very least six totally different homes, that they had come throughout a complete of at the very least 24 our bodies of girls and women bare or half bare, some mutilated, others tied up, and sometimes alone.

A paramedic in an Israeli commando unit mentioned that he had discovered the our bodies of two teenage women in a room in Be’eri.

One was mendacity on her aspect, he mentioned, boxer shorts ripped, bruises by her groin. The opposite was sprawled on the ground facedown, he mentioned, pajama pants pulled to her knees, backside uncovered, semen smeared on her again.

As a result of his job was to search for survivors, he mentioned, he stored transferring and didn’t doc the scene. Neighbors of the 2 women killed — who had been sisters, 13 and 16 — mentioned their our bodies had been discovered alone, separated from the remainder of their household.

The Israeli army allowed the paramedic to talk with reporters on the situation that he not be recognized as a result of he serves in an elite unit.

Lots of the lifeless had been delivered to the Shura army base, in central Israel, for identification. Right here, too, witnesses mentioned they noticed indicators of sexual violence.

Shari Mendes, an architect referred to as up as a reserve soldier to assist put together the our bodies of feminine troopers for burial, mentioned she had seen 4 with indicators of sexual violence, together with some with “a variety of blood of their pelvic areas.”

A dentist, Capt. Maayan, who labored on the similar identification heart, mentioned that she had seen at the very least 10 our bodies of feminine troopers from Gaza commentary posts with indicators of sexual violence.

Maayan requested to be recognized solely by her rank and surname due to the sensitivity of the topic. She mentioned she had seen a number of our bodies with cuts of their vaginas and underwear soaked in blood and one whose fingernails had been pulled out.

The Investigation

Israeli authorities haven’t any scarcity of video proof from the Oct. 7 assaults. They’ve gathered hours of footage from Hamas physique cameras, dashcams, safety cameras and cell phones exhibiting Hamas terrorists killing civilians and lots of pictures of mutilated our bodies.

However Moshe Fintzy, a deputy superintendent and senior spokesperson of Israel’s nationwide police, mentioned, “We now have zero autopsies, zero,” making an O along with his proper hand.

Within the aftermath of the assault, police officers mentioned, forensic examiners had been dispatched to the Shura army base to assist establish the a whole bunch of our bodies; Israeli officers say round 1,200 individuals had been killed that day.

The examiners labored rapidly to present the agonized households of the lacking a way of closure and to find out, by a strategy of elimination, who was lifeless and who was being held hostage in Gaza.

In line with Jewish custom, funerals are held promptly. The consequence was that many our bodies with indicators of sexual abuse had been put to relaxation with out medical examinations, which means that potential proof now lies buried within the floor. Worldwide forensic specialists mentioned that it could be doable to recuperate some proof from the corpses however that it could be troublesome.

Fintzy mentioned Israeli safety forces had been nonetheless discovering imagery that exhibits girls had been brutalized. Sitting at his desk at an imposing police constructing in Jerusalem, he swiped open his cellphone, tapped and produced the video of the 2 troopers shot within the vagina, which he mentioned was recorded by Hamas gunmen and not too long ago recovered by Israeli troopers.

A colleague sitting subsequent to him, Mirit Ben Mayor, a police chief superintendent, mentioned she believed that the brutality in opposition to girls was a mixture of two ferocious forces: “the hatred for Jews and the hatred for ladies.”

Some emergency medical staff now want that they had documented extra of what they noticed. In interviews, they mentioned that they had moved our bodies, minimize off zip ties and cleaned up scenes of carnage. Attempting to be respectful to the lifeless, they inadvertently destroyed proof.

Many volunteers working for ZAKA, the emergency response staff, are spiritual Jews and function beneath strict guidelines that command deep respect for the lifeless.

“I didn’t take footage as a result of we aren’t allowed to take footage,” mentioned Yossi Landau, a ZAKA volunteer. “On reflection, I remorse it.”

There are at the very least three girls and one man who had been sexually assaulted and survived, in response to Gil Horev, a spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs. “None of them has been keen to return bodily for remedy,” he mentioned. Two therapists mentioned they had been working with a girl who was gang raped on the rave and was in no situation to speak to investigators or reporters.

The trauma from sexual assault might be so heavy that typically survivors don’t discuss it for years, a number of rape counselors mentioned.

“Many individuals are on the lookout for the golden proof, of a girl who will testify about what occurred to her. However don’t search for that. Don’t put this strain on this girl,” mentioned Orit Sulitzeanu, govt director of the Affiliation of Rape Disaster Facilities in Israel. “The corpses inform the story.”

The Girl within the Black Gown

One of many final pictures of Abdush alive — captured by a safety digicam mounted on her entrance door — exhibits her leaving dwelling together with her husband, Nagi, at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 7 for the rave.

He was sporting denims and a black T-shirt. She was wearing a brief black gown, a black scarf tied round her waist and fight boots. As she struts out, she takes a swig from a glass (her brother-in-law remembers it was Purple Bull and vodka) and laughs.

You’ve bought to stay life prefer it’s your final moments. That was her motto, her sisters mentioned.

At dawn, a whole bunch of terrorists closed in on the occasion from a number of instructions, blocking the highways main out. The couple jumped into their Audi, dashing off a string of messages as they moved.

“We’re on the border,” Abdush wrote to her household. “We’re leaving.

“Explosions.”

Her husband made his personal calls to his household, leaving a last audio message for his brother, Nissim, at 7:44 a.m. “Handle the children,” he mentioned. “I really like you.”

Gunshots rang out, and the message stopped.

That night time, Eden Wessely, a automobile mechanic, drove to the rave web site with three buddies and located Abdush sprawled half bare on the street subsequent to her burned automobile, about 9 miles north of the location. She didn’t see the physique of Abdush’s husband.

She noticed different burned vehicles and different our bodies and shot movies of a number of, hoping that they might assist individuals to establish lacking relations. When she posted the video of the girl within the black gown on her Instagram story, she was deluged with messages.

“Hello, based mostly in your description of the girl within the black gown, did she have blonde hair?” one message learn.

“Eden, the girl you described with the black gown, do you keep in mind the colour of her eyes?” one other mentioned.

Some members of the Abdush household noticed that video and one other model of it filmed by certainly one of Wessely’s buddies. They instantly suspected that the physique was Abdush, and based mostly on the best way her physique was discovered, they feared that she may need been raped.

However they stored alive a flicker of hope that someway, it wasn’t true.

The movies caught the attention of Israeli officers as effectively. In a short time after Oct. 7, they started gathering proof of atrocities. They included footage of Abdush’s physique in a presentation made to overseas governments and media organizations, utilizing Abdush as a illustration of violence dedicated in opposition to girls that day.

Per week after her physique was discovered, three authorities social staff appeared on the gate of the household’s dwelling in Kiryat Ekron, a small city in central Israel. They broke the information that Abdush, 34, had been discovered lifeless.

However the one doc the household acquired was a one-page kind letter from Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressing his condolences and sending a hug. The physique of Abdush’s husband, 35, was recognized two days after his spouse’s. It was badly burned, and investigators decided who he was based mostly on a DNA pattern and his wedding ceremony ring.

The couple had been collectively since they had been youngsters. To the household, it appears solely yesterday that Nagi Abdush was heading off to work to repair water heaters, a bag of instruments slung over his shoulder, and Gal Abdush was cooking up mashed potatoes and schnitzel for his or her two sons, Eliav, 10, and Refael, 7.

The boys are actually orphans. They had been sleeping over at an aunt’s the night time their mother and father had been killed. Gal Abdush’s mom and father have utilized for everlasting custody, and everyone seems to be chipping in to assist.

Night time after night time, Gal Abdush’s mom, Eti Bracha, lies in mattress with the boys till they drift off. A couple of weeks in the past, she mentioned she tried to quietly depart their bed room when the youthful boy stopped her.

“Grandma,” he mentioned, “I wish to ask you a query.”

“Honey,” she mentioned, “you possibly can ask something.”

“Grandma, how did mother die?”

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