The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas once again denied that its members committed rape and sexual violence during the October 7 attacks, despite ample evidence from eyewitnesses and forensic evidence recently documented by the New York Times.
The Times of Israel reported Monday:
Hamas refutes the New York Times report on the weaponization of rape and sexual violence during the Gaza terror group’s brutal onslaught against Israel on October 7.
In a statement in Arabic and English, Hamas politburo member Basem Naim claims that the Western media and news agencies are “biased to what the Israeli propaganda says [in terms of] lies and slanders against the Palestinians and their resistance.”
Describing the October 7 savagery as “glorious,” Naim falsely claims that the New York Times report was based on accounts given indirectly by “women who said they heard other women repeating these allegations,” but there is “no conclusive evidence” that rapes took place.
As Breitbart News noted last week, the Times published an extensive report summarizing the growing evidence that Hamas raped, molested, mutilated and murdered Israeli women — and men — at several sites during the October 7 terror attack.
Left-wing anti-Israel activists in the West have tried to deny that these attacks took place, and many women’s organizations — which otherwise claim that victims should always be believed — have equivocated, delayed, or remained completely silent.
Mia Shem (or Schem), a female Israeli former hostage, who had been forced to appear in Hamas propaganda videos claiming she was being treated well, told Israeli TV last week about how she had been abused, including sexual touching during her abduction.
Shem was shot in the arm at point-blank range by a Hamas terrorist at the Supernova music festival. A Palestinian veterinarian operated on her in Gaza, without anesthetic. She has undergone several surgeries in Israel since her release in November.
Hamas also repeated its claim Monday that it would not negotiate for the release of the more than 120 Israeli hostages — mostly men, but including over a dozen women — still in captivity until Israel stopped its military activity in the Gaza Strip permanently.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the 2021 e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now updated with a new foreword. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
