Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic descriptions of violence, many of a sexual nature. Reader discretion is advised.
It did not take long for the world to callously turn away from the victims of the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. But the victims and their families will never, can never, forget. And thanks to a newly released investigative report, the full extent of the violence and cruelty of that day has been exposed for the first time, for the whole world to better understand the barbarism they experienced.
After two years of combing through 10,000+ photographs, 1800 hours of video, and 430+ testimonies from survivors, witnesses, released hostages, and first responders, the Civil Commission has released the most extensive report on the crimes committed by Hamas terrorists as part of the October 7th attack. The report traces sexual violence across the full continuum of the attack – from that dark Saturday itself, to the abductions and prolonged captivity, and the use of digital media to disseminate footage of abuse as part of spreading terror.
The report, unfortunately, is a necessary salvo in the ongoing narrative war that has been waged since October 7th. Though it has been clear since the attack that sexual violence was a primary weapon used by the perpetrators, many prominent voices denied the claim. “Believe all women” and “Silence is violence,” the rallying cries of feminists for decades, seemed not to apply if the victims were Jewish. The National Organization for Women has said nothing about the widespread use of sexual abuse. UN Women waited two months after the attack before making a statement that denounced the use of sexual violence but has been silent ever since.
To their credit, The New York Times published a lengthy investigation in December 2024 that detailed many of the sexual crimes that took place. But they were roundly criticized for printing any evidence that might justify Israel’s actions in Gaza. Other news outlets gleefully picked apart the story. The Nation called it “the biggest failure of journalism.” The Intercept published a 6000-word story picking apart The Times’ report.
Israel’s critics have repeatedly insisted that the allegations of rape and sexual abuse are unsubstantiated, that because no rape survivor has shared her testimony, rape did not occur. Some have gone so far as to say Israel has made up the claims or weaponized the allegations of sexual violence to justify their “genocide” in Gaza.
The goal of this new report is to silence all of those false narratives while at last giving voice to those who saw and survived unimaginable horrors on that day. The aptly named “Silenced No More” reveals the complete and utter cruelty of those who participated in the attack. The 180-page report presents incontrovertible evidence of the scale of the abuse. Every case cited in the report has been corroborated by witnesses and first responders. Researchers geolocated photos and video, pinpointing the location of each victim and cross-referencing it with other evidence.
The testimonies are graphically detailed and distressing, but in a world that continues to deny what happened that day, this full accounting is necessary to finally dispel the doubts that remain about the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. The Commission’s founder, Dr. Elkayam-Levy, says the report must “shift the conversation from the question of whether it happened – to what are the consequences and what can we do to prevent such atrocities in the future.”
The fundamental claim of the report is that that the widespread use of sexual violence was part of Hamas’ strategy to terrorize, humiliate, and control their victims. It documents thirteen recurring patterns of sexual and gender-based violence. The repetition of these patterns shows that these were not isolated acts of brutality but an intentional part of the October 7th attack.
One recurrent theme was sexual torture. Multiple accounts of first responders arriving at attack sites describe bodies of women with “precise burnings or deliberate shootings to the genital area or breasts, bodies with cuts in their genital area, bodies with mutilated genitals, mutilated faces and broken bones, bodies with signs of violence to the stomach area and broken legs, and bodies with broken pelvises.” Women were often found partially or completed unclothed, with sharp items such as nails, aluminum cans, and spike-like instruments inserted into their genital areas.
Men were not exempt from sexual abuse. Volunteer Nachman Shai Revivo remembers the body of a naked man who appeared to have been sexually abused. Released hostage Keith Seigel, who was kidnapped along with his wife Aviva, both duel American-Israeli citizens and in their 60s, testified to his treatment during captivity. At one point, he was made to undress in front of one of his terrorist captors, who then shaved his public hair and made comments about his genitals. Other former hostages related similar stories of never being allowed to shower privately, of being forced to share a bed with their captors, of being beaten and tormented while naked and in public.
The deliberate shooting of faces and private parts was another prominent pattern cited in the report. This seemed to be a deliberate attempt to dehumanize the victims, to mar those parts of their bodies associated with beauty and individuality. There are hundreds of incidents that cite these particular gunshot wounds.
One particularly challenging account is that of a mother who was abducted with her children. Before being taken hostage, the terrorists murdered the woman’s husband. Her eldest daughter fainted and then the terrorists shot her in the face and filmed her body. Her sister testified to the Commission that “there’s something about being shot in the face that doesn’t leave me…She was beautiful—my sister was so beautiful—and in the face…And they knew why they were doing it; they did it deliberately … So there’s this evil of the staging—like ‘Look, we shot her in the face, we disfigured her, a beautiful woman.’ It’s not just shooting—it’s to deform.”
There are numerous accounts of abuse and mutilation of dead bodies, yet another depraved pattern analyzed in the report. First responder Eran Masas pointed out that “When you kill, you kill. But when you start doing other things to the person, especially after the person is already dead, what they did… the abuses… the torture… this is something else.”
Familial bonds were often used to further torment victims. In several incidents, victims were sexually assaulted in the presence of relatives. Two minors testified to being forced to perform sexual acts on each other while in Hamas captivity in Gaza. The report terms this “kinocidal sexual violence,” violence deliberately used to destroy the family as a unit. Cruelly, the trauma is meant to affect those close bonds even after being released from captivity.
This is just a small snapshot of the hundreds of accounts contained in the Commission’s report. It is hard to respond in any other way than the prophet Habbakuk’s own cry to the Lord, “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?” This is the full scale of man’s depravity, written plainly in black and white, and it is ugly indeed. As we confront the dark realities of this world, it is a comfort to recall David’s words in Psalm 37 “fret not yourself because of evildoers … for they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.”
In order to prevent these kinds of horrors in the future, we must acknowledge that they occurred at all and hold those responsible accountable. Too many continue to peddle the lie that the barbarity of October 7th was made up. But the survivors and first responders must forever live with the trauma inflicted on them by the hands of truly evil men. It is important that we ensure the world knows their stories. May they be silenced no more.