After a series of reports detailing how Hamas terrorists sexually abused Israeli hostages taken during its surprise attack on October 7, 2023, the organization is denying that any of its operatives raped or sexually assaulted the hostages.
The statement, which was issued by Hamas politburo member Basem Naim, is a direct response to a recent New York Times report detailing accounts of sexual abuse, torture, and murder against Israeli women and girls. It included interviews with over 150 witnesses, medical personnel, first responders, and government officials, and was supported by video footage, photographs, and GPS data. Nevertheless, Hamas is attempting to debunk the report.
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.
Naim argued that Hamas treated its hostages well.
Naim further claims that the New York Times piece contradicts testimonies given by Israeli women of the “good treatment they had experienced from the Palestinian fighters on October 7,” and the accounts given by released by Israeli female hostages of the terrorists’ “eagerness to provide them all they needed despite the difficult situation in Gaza,” adding that Islamic values and culture prevent Hamas members from committing such acts.
The New York Times report is quite graphic in its descriptions of sexual abuse against Israeli women and the evidence the report presents is quite compelling, despite Hamas’ claims to the contrary. It recounts instances in which women were not only raped but also brutally mutilated and murdered.
Even before the New York Times report, multiple Israeli doctors described the brutal treatment that the hostages endured while in captivity.
Dr. Itai Pessach, one of the physicians who treated freed Israeli hostages, described a disturbing pattern of abuse that the terrorists inflicted on these individuals during an interview with CBS News.
Pessach said he believes both Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza are suffering from PTSD: “When they undergo events such as this, this will take its toll, and it doesn’t matter if they’re on this side or the other side.”
He also believes that television pictures of the freed hostages that suggested they had not been physically abused were misleading. “I think it was very deceptive,” said Pessach. “There’s not a single person that came back that didn’t have a significant physical injury or a medical problem. On top of that, some of them were getting medication, to look better than they actually were.”
There were also stories of hostages being branded (a common practice inflicted on Jews and other prisoners of Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust), and of being sexually abused. “Yes, we did see signs of branding,” Pessach said. “We definitely saw signs of being handcuffed. We did hear and see evidence of sexual abuse in a significant part of the people we have treated. We also heard evidence – and that was one of the hardest parts – of abuse against those that [are still there], both physical and sexual.”
The harrowing and disturbing accounts of rape, torture, and other types of mistreatment have illustrated the brutality of the terrorist group’s war against Israel. When reports of these atrocities first surfaced, folks in the anti-Israel crowd either denied or ignored them. Now, it has become impossible to do so.
