Those Raped Among the Dead

 Nadene Goldfoot                                       

The question of rape or not has come up about the terrorists who attacked Israel October 7th and since then:  A report by an Israeli tells about it on PBS, Public Broadcasting Service:

 Gunmen killed more than 250 people and took

 an unknown number of hostages during an assault on an all-night music festival in southern Israel. Nick Schifrin spoke with two survivors of this 

terror in the desert.

Geoff Bennett:  One of the most notorious incidents of this weekend's 

attack on Israel was one of its first, an assault on an all-night music 

festival in Southern Israel.

Police say Hamas gunmen killed more than 250 people and took an 

unknown number hostage.

Nick Schifrin speaks to two survivors of this terror in the desert.

Nick Schifrin:

The dashcam footage may be silent, but speaks loudly of horror, a Hamas gunman taking a hostage, another ensuring a victim was dead, the awful aftermath of what had been an all-night party that became a nightmare for thousands, including Raz Cohen.

Raz Cohen, Survivor of Music Festival Attack: At 6:00 a.m., we start to hear all the rockets. So, we started to hear the gunshots and a lot of people screaming. We go to hide under the stage, the main stage of the festival.

One of the people that hide with me see a terrorist, and they told everyone to run away. And that's what we did. The terrorists shoot on us. And I saw a lot of people died in my eyes, I — murdered in my eyes. People get shot in the head, in the shoulder. A lot of dead bodies.

We go to hide in a bush, a big bush in the creek. And we was in the bush something like six or seven hours. A lot of terrorists go around us and search for people to kill. The terrorists, people from Gaza, raped girls. And after they raped them, they killed them, murdered them with knives, or the opposite, killed — and after they raped, they — they did that.

They laughed. They always laughed. It's — I can't forget how they laughed on the — in this situation.

These terrorists are the ones who beheaded infants during the same incursion into Israel.  

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is among the only armies in the world that conscript women into its ranks under a mandatory military draft law. As of 2021, women make up about 40% of the IDF's conscript soldiers and about 25% of the officer corps.  Women are expected to serve for 18 months.  

I had the idea that all women had served in the IDF for 2years and would have learned Judo, or some form of it.  The kibbutz was full of visitors who came for this world-wide Music Festival, and evidently not all women on the kibbutzim are trained in self-defense, and should be since they live so close to the border.

All this time they have lived here, though, they have become immune to the daily rocket attacks as something usual.  They had learned to go to their bomb shelters, but not be prepared for actual  physical attacks.  They had fences and with locked gates and thought that enough.  They were a part of Israel proper;  not communities in Judea or Samaria where physical attacks killing all had taken place many times.  

Two elderly women were separated from their husbands, and were released today who also told their story which did not include rape;  One was 85 who was interviewed.  She was beaten while being taken away on a motorcycle, but not mistreated after that.  They held pleasant conversations ( in what language? as she spoke no English) , gave them food they also had to eat, but did not release their husbands- a form of cruelty in itself.  

Listed also by President Biden in list of horrors in this attack:

Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.

Men are known to practice rape when in battles in the history books in past societies.  It must be all that testosterone within primitive societies.  Did our American soldiers since 1812 stoop to this?  We hope not.  Civil War?  Hope not.  WWI and WWII?  Hope not. The Department estimates 20,500 Service members, representing about 13,000 women and 7,500 men, experienced some kind of contact or penetrative sexual assault in 2018, up from approximately 14,900 in 2016.  Therefore, it's happened among our own units.  

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/10/10/remarks-by-president-biden-on-the-terrorist-attacks-in-israel-2/

PBS News Hour:  https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/survivors-of-hamas-assault-on-music-fest-describe-horrors-and-how-they-made-it-out-alive

https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/israel-defense-forces#:~:text=The%20Israel%20Defense%20Forces%20(IDF,25%25%20of%20the%20officer%20corps.

https://www.sapr.mil/sites/default/files/FY18_DOD_Annual_Report_on_Sexual_Assault_in_the_Military.pdf