Although police admit, “this is not a traditional rape investigation,” there is plenty of witness testimony, video footage, and physical evidence of sexual assault on October 7.
By World Israel News Staff
Israeli police investigators are currently involved in a probe to gather evidence for several rape cases connected to the Hamas attacks on October 7th. The process is expected to be complex and will last from between six to eight months.
Although the police admit this isn’t a traditional rape investigation, David Katz who heads cyber crime at Lahav 433, the Israel Police’s criminal investigation division said at a press conference on Tuesday, “We have multiple witnesses for several cases” of sex crimes on October 7.
“We have no living victims who said ‘we have been raped,” said Katz, however, physical evidence from corpses shows clear signs of sexual assault and mutilation. In addition. Lahav 433 has gathered evidence from surveillance videos, witness accounts, and confessions from captured terrorists.
Rape kits have to be utilized within 48 hours, and given the combat conditions at the scene following October 7th, it wasn’t possible to gather information in this way. However, those who dealt with corpses, including Zaka, reported that many bodies showed signs of sexual assault.
Many of the female corpses had their underwear pulled down around their thighs and ankles. Others had a suspiciously large amount of blood in their underwear. Many corpses showed signs of genital mutilation, and in some cases, gunshot wounds in the private parts. This was also seen in some male corpses.
The police also screened a segment featuring testimony from a musical festival survivor known as Witness S.
“He is here raping her,” S. said on a video recording, “and then they pass her on to another person…she stood on her feet, she was bleeding from her back…one of the terrorists “slices her breast and throws it on the road, and they’re playing with it.”
There are likely to be similar testimonies in addition to those already gathered by the police, but even 5 weeks on, “many of the victims who survived the massacres are not ready to speak,” said Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai.
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