Page 87 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

Israeli population to know if relatives were dead, taken hostage or missing for other reasons.
‘The first priority was victim identification’, Halperin- Kaddari explains, adding that, due to the overload of corpses to be examined, in many cases examinations were too late for collecting forensic evidence of rape.
Another complicating factor was the lack of personal testimony, as the vast majority of suspected victims of rape were also murdered. Of those who survived, a number are believed to be hostages, or are not ready to speak about their ordeal.
There was a further reason why investigations into sexual violence lagged, says Halperin-Kaddari. It was not part of the protocol. Israeli procedure for dealing with a victim of a terror attack did not enquire into the possibility of rape. Never before had rape been identified as a weapon of war used by Hamas.
But as reports of sexual violence began to emerge within a week of October 7, why did it take so long for them to be acknowledged by the United Nations and by international justice groups and women’s organisations? The crescendo of voices now protesting the silence surrounding the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 has included academics, women’s rights activists, and first responders. On social media, the slogan ‘Me Too unless you are Jew’ signals the distressing view that the women’s rights movement has betrayed Israeli and Jewish women.
Halperin-Kaddari believes that part of the problem is that too many people are ‘hardwired’ to view the conflict through a lens that depicts Israelis as aggressors and Palestinians as perpetual victims. Israel’s military response and the ensuing war in Gaza seemed to reinforce this in the minds of many who eschew the complexities. In Halperin-Kaddari’s view,
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