A two-month investigation by the New York Times has produced the most detailed account yet of how Hamas systematically raped and mutilated women when they raided Israel in October. The graphic account, based on photos, videos, GPS data, and interviews with more than 150 people, is difficult to read. It makes clear that the savage gang assaults were "not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence." The story includes the eyewitness account of a 24-year-old woman who was shot in the back but managed to hide herself under bushes and grass. The woman, described as one of investigators' key witnesses, recounts seeing about 100 men gather about 50 feet away, passing among them "assault rifles, grenades, small missiles—and badly wounded women," per the story.
"It was like an assembly point," she recalls. The story includes details of the rape, slaughter, mutilation, and decapitations that ensued. "That day, I became an animal," she tells the Times. "I was emotionally detached, sharp, just the adrenaline of survival. I looked at all this as if I was photographing them with my eyes, not forgetting any detail. I told myself: I should remember everything." Similar accounts emerge from elsewhere, including those of female Israeli soldiers who were shot in the vagina. The Times also reports that at least three women and one man survived being sexually assaulted that day, though they have been too traumatized to be of much help to investigators yet. (Read the full story, but be warned of its graphic nature.)
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