Women's groups warn of failure to retain evidence of Hamas sexual violence

Women's rights groups in Israel have warned of failings in preserving forensic evidence that could have shone a light on the scale of sexual violence committed against women and girls in last month's attacks by Hamas.

- Bethan McKernan

Several incidents of sexual assault and rape from 7 October have been documented by Hamas body camera footage, verified material uploaded to social media, and photographs and videos taken by civilians and first responders, according to those involved in analysing the footage. Survivor and witness testimonies, many from the Supernova rave, describe seeing women being raped before they were shot.

Many of the atrocities committed by Hamas, as well as what are believed to be civilians or criminal gangs from Gaza who took advantage of the chaos, have been included by the Israel Defence Forces in a 40-minute reel of war crimes screened to journalists and politicians. However, the most distressing material has not been released, on the grounds that it is too difficult to watch, and to preserve the victims' dignity.

Israeli women's rights groups say that it also appears little if any investigative work was done to document sexual violence before bodies were returned to their families for funerals, meaning that the gender-based nature of some of the violence has largely gone under the radar in Israeli and international media.

Tal Hochman, a government relations officer at the Israel Women's Network, said: "Most of the women who were raped were then killed, and we will never understand the full picture, because either bodies were burned too badly or the victims were buried and the forensic evidence buried too. No samples were taken.