The UN finally responded to Israel's claims of Hamas sexual crimes. "Based on the information gathered by the mission team from multiple and independent sources, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks," the interim report presented on Monday read.
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The report also found that the crimes were committed in at least three different locations. In most of the cases, the victims of rape were murdered later and some before.
How horrible, shocking and painful but not surprising, that those were the findings of the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten and her delegation, who recently visited Israel and authored the interim report on the sexual crimes perpetrated by the Hamas terrorists during the atrocities of October 7.
Its importance cannot be overstated. It is the first serious and in-depth recognition by a UN official of the sexual crimes. The report appears to have been the result of considered recognition of the crimes, a recognition of Israel's distress over its inability to provide sufficient evidence of them, and of the right of the victims to full protection from further suffering as a result of those crimes.
Patten and her team met with various people who had direct involvement in responding to the crimes and caring for its victims. During a gathering hosted by Mrs. Michal Herzog, President Issac Herzog's wife, we all listened to Patten's words who were relayed with great empathy and rare professionalism.
Her disturbing accounts of sexual crimes systematically being perpetrated against women in violent conflicts and terror attacks, were like a dagger to our broken hearts. It was evident that the speaker was an expert who had seen in her lifetime, more than anyone could bare.
But still, when I was asked to relay a basic message to send the UN delegation on its mission to learn what had happened to us, I said that despite her considerable expertise and experience, in investigating sexual crimes around the world, what has happened here, in the heart of a strong western nation, in such force and scope, and in the course of one day – was unprecedented and cannot be compared to any previous events and must therefore be examined and framed differently than anything that the members of the delegation have known.
On October 7 Israel began dealing with a massive terror attack of a scope we could not expect. In it, hundreds were subjected to cruel violence, including sexual violence that was systematically used in a way never before seen in the years-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel was caught unprepared and with it were the organizations and authorities established to deal with and investigate such crimes. Hundreds of bodies of our citizens were piled up next to those of the soldiers killed in the battles with the terrorists, while the immediate goal was to identify them and return them to the families so that they could be buried.
First responders moved in and out of the horrific crime scenes and contaminated them. Some documented what they had seen but the majority, concentrated on the job at hand which was saving any lives possible and removing the bodies of the dead so that they would not be desecrated or captured. Those first responders unwillingly became eye witnesses and some were themselves were since also victims of trauma.
This resulted in the difficulty to provide the evidentiary basis for many of the crimes, as would have been required in such cases. This factual chaos was included in the UN report as a basis for understanding the lack of more forensic evidence and was framed such as to provide credibility to our claims and to what we know had transpired.
The same chaos that interfered in the ability to preserve the forensic evidence was also the stated objective of the terror attack and a part of its intent to instill a sense of helplessness in its victims.
In her press conference on Monday, upon submitting her interim report, Patten was subjected to a barrage of mostly political questions, from those who rudely accused her of a lack of professionalism, and attempted to question the legitimacy of her work, as if it was in the service of Israeli interests and meant to prolong the war in Gaza.
Prof. Yifat BittonShe responded in a measured and considered manner, explaining the importance of her work that from her perspective was not intended to support one political view or another, but to act, as would have been done anywhere else in the world, in the benefit of the victims of sexual assault, and to end the use of sexual violence as a tool of war.
We who have fought for that recognition in the international arena from the start, concur. At last we found at our side, an international body that is fighting this battle with us, in the war where women can only lose.
Professor Yifat Bitton is a Law professor, and advocates for the rights of women who have suffered abuse. She is the president of the Achva Academic College of education & science