Israeli media, politicians, and the likes of Hillary Clinton are now speaking with absolute certainty about a premeditated mass rape campaign allegedly committed by Hamas fighters during the October 7 attack against Israel. Those spreading these claims demand condemnation of them. After all, they are harrowing. However, there’s only one problem: an absence of evidence.

The History Of The October 7 Rape Allegations

The first Israeli of note to make the reported rape allegation was Aviva Klompas, a former speechwriter for the Israeli mission to the UN. “Reports are emerging of Israeli girls being raped and their bodies dragged through the street,” she said at 9:18 PM (Palestine Time). Klompas is the co-founder of Boundless Israel, a “think-action tank” that works “to revitalize Israel education and take bold collective action to combat Jew-hatred.” It is an “unapologetically Zionist” charitable group that works to promote Israeli narratives on social media. When these allegations first emerged, Israeli forces were still battling to retake areas where Palestinian fighters had imbedded themselves, meaning it would not have been possible to verify claims of rape at that point.

US President Joe Biden, who also repeatedly lied about seeing confirmed photos of “terrorists beheading children,” stated on October 10 that Israeli women were “raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies.” According to The Forward, the Israeli military acknowledged they had no evidence of such allegations at that point. When the Israeli army eventually came out with their claims of rape, Reuters reported correctly that “the military personnel overseeing the identification process didn’t present any forensic evidence in the form of pictures or medical records.”

On November 9, more than a month after the Hamas-led attack, the Times of Israel admitted that there was no physical evidence, writing that “physical evidence of sexual assault was not collected from corpses.” The same article goes on to claim with certainty that gang rape, genital mutilation, and even necrophilia had taken place. If you read this article and compare its claims to those made in today’s inquiry, something will instantly jump out at you: They use the same material to make the assertions. It is only now, roughly a month later, that these same allegations are being presented as if there have been new revelations of significant value.

The Evidence

To begin with, there is no physical evidence for the claim of mass rape. There is also no reliable information to suggest that a mass rape campaign was the plan of Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups. However, testimonies are indeed important—and so are eyewitness accounts.

“The Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children” is now being presented as the primary source for allegations of rape. It was created by a woman named Cochav Elkayam-Levy, who is presented in Western and Israeli media as a feminist lawyer fighting for justice. This portrayal of Elkayam-Levy is inaccurate and works to mislead the public into thinking she is leading a fully independent and impartial investigation.

In the case of CNN, they presented her as a human rights expert. In reality, Cochav Elkayam-Levy worked for the Israeli government’s Attorney General’s office and provided legal justification for Israeli officials committing human rights violations against Palestinians. In the past, she also provided a detailed legal manual regarding “standardization through legislation and regulation” for forced feeding, which is a well-known torture method. She also has tight connections with the National Security Council for the Israeli prime minister.

An investigation by Mondoweiss presents one account that has been pushed as testimony evidence of rape. However, it was directly contradicted by facts on the ground. The outlet writes:

“The report then presented a video of an Israeli soldier, showing his back only, identified by the letter ‘G,’ claiming to be a paramedic of unit ‘66’ – the Israeli Air Force Special Tactics rescue unit. In his testimony, the soldier says that during a search in the houses of ‘Kibbutz Be’eri,’ during combat, he opened a door of a bedroom to find the bodies of two girls aged between 13 and 15, both killed, one of them naked with semen remains on her lower back. Upon examining the names of all the girls killed in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7 to match the facts, no pair of Israeli teenagers meeting that description were found dead together.”

The article also notes that according to Israel’s Channel 13, Unit 669 was not present at Kibbutz Be’eri. In addition, a very similar incident recounted by an unnamed Israeli was said to have taken place in Nahal Oz. The Mondoweiss piece points out many significant inconsistencies in the various claims made by anonymous Israelis who we are told were witnesses to sexual violence.

It has been acknowledged that testimonies about various kinds of sexual violence, taken from the ZAKA rescue group, are part of Cochav Elkayam-Levy’s commissions’ evidence (in addition to testimonies from the Israeli military and first responders reportedly shared with the commission). ZAKA, aside from being accused of financial fraud, is behind the “40 beheaded babies” and “Jewish babies found hanging from laundry lines” hoaxes. Brad Pearce, who published an independently run profile on the corruption of ZAKA, described it as “the most opaque and suspicious non-governmental organization I have ever investigated.”

What makes this “evidence,” presented through testimonies of ZAKA volunteers, quite insulting, however, is the fact that it was founded by Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, a serial rapist who went on a decades-long rampage of sexual abuse. His crimes were only discovered after his suicide, as it was revealed that he—nicknamed “the Haredi Jeffrey Epstein”—had abused both male and female victims. Yossi Landau, who has been quoted widely across Western media and is described as a “ZAKA Commander” recently called for those who question ZAKA’s claims to be killed.

Meanwhile, a BBC report on alleged rape and sexual assault, including claims of mutilation, relied on May Golani as a primary source. May Golani became infamous after leading an anti-black race rally in Tel Aviv, declaring openly that “I am proud to be a racist“. She is an open fascist—far from a trustworthy and neutral source.

Now, back to Cochav Elkayam-Levy. In a piece published by Israel’s Haaretz News entitled “The Scope of Hamas’ Campaign of Rape Against Israeli Women Is Revealed, Testimony After Testimony,” the primary focus is on Elkayam-Levy and her investigations. Despite the title, the article mentions that “the commission has not taken testimony directly,” which merits a change in the misleading title. Much of the article is dedicated to humanizing and lionizing Elkayam-Levy, highlighting that she cried on the phone along with her emotional reactions to different questions.

But once you read past all of the storytelling about the supposed feminist heroine, you get to some important information that tells the reader a lot about the nature of this commission’s leader. It becomes clear that Elkayam-Levy is working backward from the conclusions she has arrived at—before presenting any kind of detailed investigation or report. She claims sex crimes were weaponized in the entire attacked region, allegedly drawing this conclusion, in part, from Shin Bet interrogations of alleged Hamas fighters. The Shin Bet is notorious for torture, and it even released two videos of alleged Nukhba [Hamas special forces] fighters, which could be considered a war crime if it is confirmed that the two Palestinians—not confirmed to be Hamas fighters yet—were, indeed, tortured. Further, Elkayam-Levy was caught using a photo of a dead Kurdish woman, also incidentally distributed by the Israeli government, presenting it as photographic evidence of rape against Israeli women.

Various claims have been made by unnamed individuals—men claiming to have been eyewitnesses to gang rape, but none can be independently verified.  When journalists have asked for an estimated number of those raped, the likes of Elkayam-Levy have flatly refused, making it out to be irrational and morally wrong to seek that data. As of now, we have no clear estimate of how many Israeli women are claimed to have been abused.

We are also told that this was a pre-planned mass rape campaign, yet we have not one accuser nor any physical evidence. Now, the response to this has been to claim that the women who were raped were also murdered. Many of those who are talking about wanting us to “believe Israeli women” are now saying there are actually no women for us to believe. Instead, we have to believe the testimonies of mainly men. When the questioning becomes too severe, you are called names for pointing out that the stories are incredibly different, and there seems to be no consistency throughout the testimonies presented. What is portrayed by these unnamed people in their testimonies is gruesome and merits a real investigation. If any of these cases are true, the world should know, but instead, a heavily coordinated campaign has been launched to spread the stories as if they have been confirmed.

The Verdict

The investigations carried out so far do not substantiate the claims made about a premeditated Hamas rape campaign under the cover of war. This has been a well-coordinated campaign that speaks with certainty without actually presenting any findings or hearing any direct testimonies. This campaign is completely biased, makes assumptions before discerning evidence, calls upon the likes of the UN to make irrational condemnations, and presents one baseless claim after another. If an independent fact-finding mission were conducting an honest and fair investigation, they would not make claims about the intentions of Hamas and its plans on October 7 without serious evidence to back up their conclusions.

What we see in this biased campaign is an attempt by people making outrageous claims to weaponize possible horrifying war crimes, then trying to gather any possible evidence that could be interpreted in a way to favor their narrative. This is not serious, and if it is true that even one Israeli woman was raped on October 7, it is grotesque that the Israeli and US governments are using such egregious sexual violence to provide cover for the crimes Israel’s armed forces are currently committing in Gaza.

The only way to find out the truth is to send in an independent fact-finding mission to investigate these claims. What we are seeing now is an affront to the truth and a sadistic shaming campaign.