'I was not afraid to die, I was afraid to be raped' - Nova survivor on Oct. 7 sex offenses

Tali Biner bore witness to the rape and sex offenses she heard taking place around her during Hamas’s October 7 attack at a conference hosted by the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel on Tuesday.

Biner, an operating room nurse, hid in a caravan at the Nova music festival for seven hours on October 7, hearing the sounds of what she said was unmistakably rape.

“Rape has one sound,” said Biner, explaining that there are those who question how she could be sure that rape and sex offenses were taking place, since she could not see the attacks, but only hear what was happening.

“It is the sound of helplessness that turns into a loss of your own humanity.”

Biner said she heard shouts of women that “went on for a few minutes, which felt like hours, and ended in a spray [of bullets],” shouts that “split the heavens and cut the soul to pieces.”

“I was not afraid to die; I was afraid to be raped. I was afraid I would have to provide proof and explanations about the fact that my soul is not here anymore,” Biner said.

“For hours, I heard a man yelling, begging them to leave her alone,” she said, referring to a couple she remembers being attacked on October 7.

Biner explained that when she left the caravan where she was hiding, all of the things she had heard were given visual confirmation – “women with their legs spread, their underwear pushed aside and the shirt ripped off their bodies.”

Commenting on the status of the hostages

Commenting on the status of the hostages, Biner said she “can’t bring herself to think about what is happening to them, when there is no time pressure, when there is no one coming to help.”

She also shared about the impact of being witness to the events of October 7.

“I dream a few times a week about a situation in which I am raped, or almost raped, or harassed.”Since October 7, Biner has “removed sexuality from my lexicon. Something in my feminine and sexual light has gone out.”

“As far as I am concerned, sexuality has turned into a sort of taking advantage and that is the direct translation that was created for me,” she said, adding that “sexuality has turned into a tool of war, of taking a stance, of seizing power, and I am afraid to be in that situation.

“I am afraid to be in a situation where I say ‘no’ and am not listened to. I heard women yelling ‘no’ and they were not left alone. It could happen to me as well.”

Biner called on authorities to complete a thorough and uncompromising examination of what happened on October 7 and to provide better and less invasive support to survivors.