Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the US Department of State, said: “It seems one of the reasons they don’t want to turn women over they’ve been holding hostage and the reason this pause fell apart is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody.”
A total of 110 of the approximately 240 hostages abducted by Hamas or their affiliates were released as part of the temporary ceasefire, 78 of them Israeli women and children.
On Tuesday an Israeli health official told the Knesset that hostages were drugged before being handed over to the Red Cross for release.
Prof Ronid Endevelt, the head of the health ministry’s nutrition department, said the terrorists had forced their captives to swallow tranquillisers such as Clonex as well as vitamins “so they would look happy”.
The UN has faced mounting criticism for a lack of a robust condemnation of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas.
António Guterres, the UN’s secretary-general, said sex crimes must be “vigorously investigated and prosecuted” in a statement not released until Nov 29.
UN Women has been singled out in particular recently for its silence on the issue while it has regularly spoken out about the plight of Palestinian women and girls.
Meni Binyamin, the head of Israeli police’s International Crime Investigations Unit, has said in an interview that it had documented “violent rape incidents, the most extreme sexual abuses we have seen,” on Oct 7, “I am talking about dozens”.
He said some men were among the victims of sexual violence.
Among the evidence found by the investigators were bodies of women that were partially or fully naked, women with broken pelvic bones, plus videos taken by Hamas fighters themselves.
There are also a small number of first-hand witnesses, including a woman who told police that she had watched Hamas terrorists taking turns to rape a young women they had captured at the Nova music festival.
In a video released by police last month, she said they had mutilated the woman before shooting her in the head.
Speaking at the UN on Monday, Yael Richert, an Israeli police superintendent, presented a video of witnesses. One testimony by a paramedic said: “Shooting was targeted at sexual organs. We saw that a lot.”
Ms Sandberg said: “On Oct 7, Hamas brutally murdered 1,200 souls and in some cases, they first raped their victims.
‘‘We know this from eyewitnesses, we know this from combat paramedics, we would know this from some victims if more had been allowed to live.”
Hamas has denied that its fighters have committed sexual crimes.
The terrorist group said such activity would violate Islamic principles.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
