Justice must be served for perpetrators of sexual violence - editorial

That Israeli women were mass raped and gruesomely sexually assaulted and abused by Hamas is known.

Time might feel like it has frozen since that Saturday in October. Still, more than three months have passed, and another horrid possibility exists, one that health experts and medical professionals have begun to prepare for: their pregnancies in captivity.

Four days after it all began, on October 11, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel submitted a request to the International Committee of the Red Cross to push for the release of hostages after reports emerged of cases of rape, reports that came straight to the organization. That was three months ago.

It is vile, horrifying, nauseating, and sickening even to consider. And the clock continues to tick. These crimes need to be remembered and documented as diligently as possible, because the day this gets to court – and it will – we need to ensure justice is served.

Israel doesn’t know for sure whether or how many hostages are pregnant, since none of them has received medical care, but the government and healthcare professionals are preparing nonetheless. Sources told Maariv this week that hospitals are holding intensive discussions over how to prepare for the hopeful return of the hostages after enough sexual assaults and traumas to last a lifetime, and possibly in the early stages of pregnancy.

Israeli law permits abortions, but addressing the traumas and scars remains daunting. The horrifying and disturbing testimonials bravely put forward have prompted gynecologists to hold discussions over the past few weeks over the possibility of women having been impregnated by terrorist rapists.

In mid-November, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum submitted a medical report to the International Red Cross, outlining the medical needs of these women. The report includes the consequences of not treating rape victims.

Sexual violence as a weapon of war

We know that sexual crimes have been committed against women in times of war, since we have records of such crimes. In 2004, Amnesty International put out a report highlighting such cases in conflicts worldwide. But one doesn’t need to go that far back.

Each passing day increases the risk of infections. The body’s immunosuppression during pregnancy, coupled with the challenging hygienic conditions in the Hamas tunnels, increases the risk of infections. Moreover, the profound psychological trauma of carrying a fetus resulting from the brutal rape by a murderous terrorist is incomprehensible.

Those who dismiss the complete shock and horror Israel experienced that day, and those who use excuse it as a valid response to Palestinian suffering and argue that Israel’s offensive in Gaza outdoes the terror it experienced, have forgotten quite quickly that what happened on October 7 was an act of war that included deliberate sexual violence.

Late last month, The New York Times published an investigative report that its staff had worked on for two months, interviewing over 150 people and reporting across Israel to collect testimonials. Israeli officials have said since the beginning that everywhere Hamas terrorists struck, they brutalized women. The Times investigation verified that, establishing that these attacks were not isolated events but “part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence.”

It is one thing to fight man to man, soldier to soldier. It is another to brutalize and sexually violate, acts performed routinely on October 7 in more ways than one, and not just to women. The pregnancy discussions among health professionals are a manifestation of the necessity to deal with the complete absurdity and regression that was on October 7.

And though it is a difficult discussion, we cannot stop having it, we have to remember what happened. Proud Israeli women were taken advantage of in an attempt to bring Israel to its knees. Hamas failed in that. But the day will come, after all this ends, when we will take Hamas to court for their crimes.

This needs to be at the top of that list, and the testimonials, stories, and accounts must be recorded and organized in a way we can use. The National Crime Unit has been gathering evidence.

These acts were worse because they served no purpose; there was no measure of winning to be gained from raping these girls, only rage and animalistic power. And they will pay, but we must be ready to make that happen.