Full article at https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-895834
For over two years, the screams of the
victims of October 7 have
been met with a chilling and selective silence from much of the international
community. Today, that silence is shattered by the weight of an unprecedented
evidentiary archive. The release of the landmark report titled “Silenced No
More: Sexual Terror Unveiled: The Untold Atrocities of October 7 and Against
Hostages in Captivity” marks a definitive turning point in the struggle for
truth.
Commissioned by the Civil Commission
on October 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, this
document is the result of a rigorous independent investigation led by Dr.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the 2024 Israel Prize laureate.
Supported by a team of legal giants,
including former Canadian minister
of justice and attorney-general Irwin Cotler and former UN chief prosecutor
David Crane, the Commission has synthesized a staggering volume of evidence.
The archive contains over 430 testimonies, 1,800 hours of visual analysis, and
10,000 photographs.
The report identifies 13 distinct patterns of abuse, establishing that
sexual and gender-based violence was not incidental. Instead, it was a
systematic and deliberate component of the Hamas assault, used to amplify
terror through digital dissemination and the horrific practice of kinocide,
which is the weaponization of family members to witness the degradation of
their loved ones.
As we digest these findings, we must
recognize two competing truths. First, we still do not and may never understand
the full extent of these horrors.
We must take the time to really ponder
and remember the individual suffering of the victims. This is not a matter of
policy but of profound human agony that demands our undistracted collective
memory. Irrefutable proof must stop denialism
With the release of this irrefutable
proof, let this be the final day of October 7 denialism. For months, the world
has watched as high-profile figures used their massive platforms to cast doubt
on the suffering of Israeli women. Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters,
just one of many, has been among the most vocal, publicly claiming there is “no
evidence” of Hamas rapes and dismissing the testimonies of survivors and first
responders as “filthy, disgusting lies.”
When global feminist organizations and
UN bodies waited months to even acknowledge these atrocities, they provided a
shield for Hamas and signaled worldwide that the slogan “Believe Women” has a
geographic and political limit.
This report removes that shield once
and for all. It demands that the world stop asking for “more evidence” when the
archives are already overflowing with it.
There is, however, a profound note of
hope within these harrowing pages. The report’s extensive legal analysis
provides a clear evidentiary basis for the investigation and prosecution of
these acts as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal acts under
international law.
The perpetrators of this mass-scale
sexual violence must be brought to justice. Now, armed with the truth, we must
ensure they are heard in the halls of justice. The era of denial must end,
replaced by an era of accountability and a deep international commitment to
honoring the memory of those who suffered the unthinkable.
