AN Israeli advocate against sexual violence has appealed to Jamaicans and people in other parts of the world not to be insensitive to or downplay allegations that Jewish women and men have been sexually assaulted since the October 7, 2023 attacks in Gaza that sparked the current war between Israel and Hamas.

“If women and men are being sexually attacked in other places in the world, I would very much care. They should know that if it happened to us, it can happen to anyone. Those kinds of things never happened before in Israel. Even though we have had terror attacks, there was never sexual violence as part of an organised terror attack in Israel. People should care because it was a horrible thing that happened and it could happen to anyone. There is no context under which sexual violence is okay,” Hila Neubach, head of legal at the Association of Rape Crises Centers in Israel, said in round-table talk with a delegation of Caribbean journalists in Tel Aviv earlier this month.

Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to official data. The count includes hostages who died or were killed while being held in Gaza.

During the attack, militants also kidnapped 251 hostages, 96 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli military say are dead.

In response to the attack Israel launched a fierce offensive in Gaza killing at least 44,786 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas-run health ministry that is considered reliable by the United Nations (UN).

The war has displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million population, with many people forced to flee multiple times.

In recent weeks the Israeli military has been conducting sweeping operations in northern Gaza, stating that its objective is to prevent Hamas fighters from regrouping.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that the operation has resulted in hundreds of deaths, while the Israeli military say it has killed dozens of militants.

Medics in Gaza report severe shortage of medicines in hospitals amid the ongoing military assault.

The fighting has also resulted in casualties among medical workers, further straining the health-care system.

The UN and international human rights organisations have accused Israel of genocide. In December 2023 South Africa filed a case against Israel at the UN’s top court, accusing the country of “violating the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza”.

Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister, and a top Hamas leader.

The ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect the three men of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Earlier this month, during the round-table with the visiting journalists at the Israeli foreign ministry, Neubach said that, based on the accounts given by numerous sources, including hostages who were released and returned to Israel, a report was compiled of the sex crimes committed by Hamas fighters on October 7 and afterwards.

“We needed to tell the world what happened because a lot of women’s organisations denied it. It was very hard for us as a women’s organisation. What was revealed was that there were four areas where sexual violence was committed, including the Nir Oz Kibbutz near Gaza, the Nova Festival, and IDF (Israel Defence Force) bases. The patterns of sexual assault were similar in all places,” she said.

“What we found was that there were rape practices, sadistic practices, things that we never saw nor heard before. There was systematic use of brutal violence to commit rape, multiple abusers, gang rape and rape in the presence of family and community members to make the humiliation worse. There was also sexual offence of males,” she alleged.

“There was also execution during or after rape; there was binding and tying, mutilation and destruction of genital organs. Our conclusion was that the sexual abuse was not an isolated incident. It was a strategy. Most of the victims did not survive. They were killed and that is why they are not here to tell the story,” she said.

Hamas has repeatedly denied allegations its fighters committed acts of sexual violence during the October 7 attacks.

At the same, a UN team that visited Israel between January 29 and February 14 this year said there is “convincing information” that hostages held in Gaza have been subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualised torture. The team has published a report with its findings.

The UN report also said there had been allegations of sexual violence against Palestinians in Israeli custody, including “unwanted touching of intimate areas” and “prolonged forced nudity” in detention settings, during house raids, and at checkpoints after the October 7 attacks.