Lahbib for an international investigation into sexual violence on October 7
During her visit to Israel on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib called for a thorough international investigation into the sexual violence during the Hamas attack on October 7.
Lahbib made the call during her meeting with Orith Solitziau, director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI), and gynecologist Dvora Bauman of Hasasah Hospital in Jerusalem. That meeting was part of Minister Lahbib’s three-day working visit to Israel and the West Bank.
There are “reasonable grounds to believe” that the victims of the October 7 Hamas attack were raped, as were some hostages in Gaza, according to a recent United Nations report.
The United Nations was previously criticized for being slow to respond to reports of rape and sexual violence that Israel accuses Hamas of. The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, spent more than two weeks in Israel and the West Bank together with several experts in early February.
Based on information gathered from “several independent sources, there is good reason to believe that conflict-related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred in several locations on the edge of the Gaza Strip during the October 7 attack, including rape and gang rape at at least three locations,” including the location at the Nova festival, the report said.
Hamas has dismissed those findings as “false” and “unfounded.” The UN report “does not quote any testimony from victims,” the Palestinian terror organization responded.
According to Hadja Lahbib, it is therefore important to go a step further and set up an international commission of inquiry.
