NoThese were not isolated events. Around the rapes, abuses and mutilations perpetrated on Israeli women by Hamas fighters in the attack of last October 7th there was a “broader pattern”, a broader picture. The wrote it New York Times: in his investigation, published on December 28, tried to shed light on the nature of the cases of violence against women that occurred during the terrorist attack. Noting, precisely, that It wasn’t “cases” but systematic violence. And this changes everything: indictment for war crimes looms. In this direction, in light of this evidence, an appeal has been launched for the international community to recognize the Hamas terrorist attacks of 7 October as a mass femicide.
Hamas and violence against women. The appeal for it to be recognized as a “crime against humanity”
The journalists of New York Times they relied on footage, photographs, cell phone GPS data and interviews with more than 150 people. Among them witnesses, medical and paramedical staff, soldiers and experts in rape cases. The investigation revealed at least seven locations in which Israeli women have been victims of sexual violence or mutilated.
The difficulty of a systematic analysis of abuse
But despite the many testimonies collected, the true extent of these sexual crimes may never be known.
The Israeli police themselves admitted that, in the general confusion of those days, samples of semen were not collected, nor were autopsies of the bodies requested. Today they would be tests.
«A systematic analysis of the evidence of sexual abuse is lacking also for the conditions of some of the victims’ bodies, their large number, the urgency of identifying them and then burying or burning them”. The report also explains it Sexual and gender violence as a weapon of warpublished by Physicians for Human Rights, an Israeli human rights organization that documented the events that occurred on October 7.
The mass femicide of Israelis
Already on the occasion of November 25, the International Day against Violence against Women, the idea of identifying Hamas violence against women as gender violence had been raised in France by the association Paroles de femmes with an appeal.
«Whatever opinion you have on the conflict, this is not about taking a political position. This is about signing that we always oppose, in any case, gender violence. Hamas’ violence was not an isolated event, but a plan designed to outrage women. The femicide of October 7 must be declared a mass femicide and the perpetrators must be convicted of this crime.”
The appeal: Hamas’ violence against women among crimes against humanity
Now a new appeal has been launched precisely for this purpose. Among the promoters of the appeal, Andrée Ruth Shammah, artistic director of the Teatro Parenti in Milan, who explained its meaning to Corriere della Sera.
The goal is arrive at a charge for crimes against humanity. To do this it is necessary to follow the process of the Geneva Convention of 1949 which also designates under this category rapes and systematic violence perpetrated in times of war.
Among the signatories of the appeal (here is the link to join), the minister of family and equal opportunities Eugenia Roccella, Maria Elena Boschi, Mara Carfagna, the former mayor of Milan Letizia Moratti and the former minister Giovanna Melandri. In addition to Alessandra Kustermann and Anita Friedman. Corrado Augias, Damiano Micheletto, Elisabetta and Vittorio Sgarbi, Marco Tronchetti Provera, Carmen Llera Moravia, Cristiana Mainardi, Lionello Cerri, Dacia Maraini, Ferruccio de Bortoli are added.
The crimes of Hamas and those of the Israeli army
October 7 was a turning point on both sides. Israeli soldiers have also been guilty of crimes, as demonstrated by the treatment of minors in detention centers according to the report of Save The Children Injustice.
And also for the Israeli attacks Amnesty International talks about war crimes (Israel has violated international humanitarian law by not taking feasible precautions to save civilian lives). The crescendo of cruelty in war zones cannot, however, take the form of a comparison with the most heinous crime in our public debate.
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