Worthy Christian News > Israel-Palestinian Conflict > Israel: Police Painstakingly Investigate Rapes Committed by Hamas Terrorists on Oct. 7

Israel: Police Painstakingly Investigate Rapes Committed by Hamas Terrorists on Oct. 7

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Police investigators in Israel are building rape cases against Gaza terrorists who joined in the surprise attack launched by Hamas against Israeli civilians on October 7, the Times of Israel (TOI) reports. The Palestinians murdered at least 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis and abducted around 240 others, amid an attack which included the torture of children, the rape of women, and the burning down of kibbutzim in southern Israel.

Survivors of the attack, which was the worst experienced by the Jewish people since the Holocaust, have spoken from the start about rapes that took place during the Hamas slaughter of 260 young people at the Super Nova festival. Notably, rape kits used for the collection of semen and other dna were not prioritized during the vital first 48 hour window in which this type of forensic evidence must be obtained because the site and the larger area was an active war zone, TOI reports.

Nevertheless, investigators have been building cases based on eye-witness statements, testimony from terrorists in custody, and photographs of victim’s bodies in situ and at the emergency morgue set up at the Shura military base, TOI reports. “We have multiple witnesses for several cases” of sexual abuse, David Katz, who heads cyber crime at Lahav 433, the Israel Police’s criminal investigation division, said in a statement Tuesday.

“We did gather photographic evidence,” police spokesperson Dean Elsdunne said in a separate statement. “We have detailed photos of the bodies of victims, and everything is being put together,” Elsdunne said.

Mirit Ben Mayor, who leads communications for the Israel Police, added that this “is not a traditional rape investigation,” TOI reports.Based on “the conditions of the bodies that came in, bodies in the field, by the stories people are telling, by the situation of the bodies that arrived for forensic checking at Shura,” Ben Mayor said, “we say that there was rape, that there was sexual harassment. There is no room for doubt about these events.”