TEL AVIV – On Thursday, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, revealed that the Israeli police are facing difficulties in finding victims of alleged sexual assaults during Al-Aqsa Flood Operation carried out by the Al-Qassam Brigades on October 7.
اضافة اعلان
The newspaper added that Israeli police cannot link any evidence even after nearly three months since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood, where it launched a lawsuit to encourage those who have information about the matter to attend and testify, Al-Ghad reported.
The police are also facing difficulties in finding eyewitnesses to the alleged crimes, explaining that “even in the few cases in which the police collected testimonies about sexual crimes, they failed to link the [alleged] acts to the victims who were harmed.”
Haaretz reported that in light of these difficulties in proving sexual crimes, the Israeli police decided to go to the public and appeal to "those who have information in this regard to come forward and testify."
The newspaper pointed out that most of the testimonies covered by the Israeli and foreign media, including a New York Times report about the alleged assaults, are based on the testimony of a young Israeli woman, referred to as the letter “S”, of whom a clip was shown at the UN.
Adi Edri, the official responsible for investigating sexual crimes stated that the allegations mentioned by “S” in her testimony centered on the fact that she was an eyewitness to “the rape and murder of at least two women at the Nova party.” The investigator claimed that “the police carefully examined the details of the testimony and found it to be very reliable,” adding, “However, investigators were unable to identify the women who were raped and murdered."
Edri mentioned, “I have circumstantial evidence, but in the end, my duty is to find support for the narrative and identity of the victims, at this stage, I do not have specific people.”
She added that Israeli police have collected “a small number of eyewitness accounts of sexual crimes, along with many testimonies from military personnel, ZAKA, and other rescue forces who went to the scene, and the organization also has records of the bodies.”
The newspaper stressed that “the investigation into the sexual crimes allegedly committed after the attack also faces difficulties” as there is a “lack of forensic evidence”.
This all unraveled when Israeli officials sought to promote the narrative that Al-Qassam members committed crimes of sexual violence on October 7, which was adopted by the administration of US President Joe Biden, who claimed that “we received reports that Hamas used... Rape to terrorize women during the October 7th attack.”
“The world cannot turn a blind eye to what is happening… We must all strongly condemn Hamas’s sexual violence without equivocation”, Biden added.
However, Hamas officials denied these allegations and published videos showing its members dealing with children in a friendly manner. Another video showed armed members of the Al-Qassam Brigades releasing a woman with her children at the border.
In a statement, Izzat al-Rishq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, said, “The world will discover the lies and falsehoods of the Israeli narrative that spreads misleading information about the alleged atrocities committed by the Palestinian resistance.” He added, “Such allegations have never been proven, and no evidence has been presented to support such false claims.”
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