October 7 Massacre in Israel, part 7: Words Without Truth
How the New York Times Helped Netanyahu Weaponize Sexual Violence Allegations Against the People of Gaza
January 22, 2024
1) A Propaganda & Genocide Assist from the NYT?
This post will review the New York Times' December 28 article "‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7." By Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella, New York Times, December 28, 2023 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html
I've been incredibly slow to decide this was worth finishing and then to assemble it even this well. I was originally content to leave it with the great works of Max Blumenthal and the Gray Zone, among others. But now I'll just start there; with some double-checking and other research of my own, some points and thoughts came up that I think improve the record. So this is a worthwhile read, if I've boiled it down well enough for you.
As the report's opening summary says "A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7." This seems to confirm Israeli officials who "say that everywhere Hamas terrorists struck — the rave, the military bases along the Gaza border and the kibbutzim — they brutalized women,"
First of all, even if every claim in this article were true, that would not provide any legitimate legal reason for Israel's current or planned genocide program(s) in Gaza or anywhere else (and it classes as genocide by at least some relevant definitions). The radical Netanyahu government and apparently the majority of Israel's populace seem to feel that the mass rape DOES explain their trajectory just fine; only the details of Hamas' alleged violence need to be considered in deciding the fate of Gaza and its 2 million inhabitants, because international law doesn't apply to Israel, as THE aggrieved victims of a brand new "Holocaust."
Now that the Jewish state has been provoked ... should they kill some or all of Gaza's people, using bombs, hunger, thirst and disease, or maybe with a nuke, as some inside and outside the government have argued? Or should they simply threaten these in combination as the alternative to a massive "voluntary relocation?" Both notions are floated openly, with expulsion taken as the "logical" and "humane" option. Officially, no such genocide or ethnic cleansing is planned, but the "war" Israel has waged so far leaves these paths wide open by making Gaza essentially a living hell.
Do Israeli settlements in Gaza return and then expand? Should they just settle the whole strip, and/or shorten the route of their hoped-for Ben Gurion Canal, running it right through Gaza? (see Eurasia Review) Do they take the West Bank too? Then on to the East Bank, into Lebanon, Syria and everything else "God promised them" long ago? It's all in happy discussion, after it was "proven" that - in particular - Israeli babies were beheaded and Israeli women were raped in the genocidal Palestinian incursion of October 7. (it does also count by SOME definitions, but Israelis insist if any one party is guilty of genocide - and they assume just one party CAN be guilty - then it must be Hamas, who they say DELIBERATELY killed babies, and who raped women.)
So the allegations offer no legal justification, but they drive Israelis anyway, and for the rest of us, the truth matters in its own ways. The main question we'll consider here is if the mass rape claims are true, at least judging by the provided evidence. The way it's piled up in the Times report, Hamas mass rape can seem pretty conclusive. But after sorting and considering ... the lodged claims have always been curiously short on supporting evidence, are often dubious or implausible, frequently change over time, and whenever there are enough specifics to compare with other evidence, the rape stories tend to clash with it, and to lose that clash.
It remains all but impossible to prove a negative, like "rape did NOT happen," but the provided evidence FOR it has been seen to fail. So it seems likely the published stories were partly or entirely invented, probably in order to give Israel its supposed blank check for genocide and ethnic cleansing. This kind of allegation is akin to the "blood libel" long directed at Jews - incitement to communal hatred and perhaps to genocide. Those found guilty of such fabrications to fuel Nazi aggression and the Holocaust were certainly not tolerated by the civilized world, and found guilty of the crimes they encouraged and concealed (see the case of Hans Fritzsche).
The Israelis would surely know what they're doing spreading such tales against the Palestinians as they set about re-writing Gaza's future. And Gettleman, Schwartz and Sella at the Times likely know what they're doing in assisting this effort, apparently having avoided any kind of second-checking or scrutiny as they essentially megaphoned Tel Aviv's hateful propaganda.
Maybe they had a lucky break, journalistically, and the claims wound up being true anyway. Let's have a detailed check how likely that is.
2) Evidence Overview: No Medical, No Video - Just Words
The Times heard from a government official about three women and one man who survived Hamas rape and were in counseling, but “None of them has been willing to come physically for treatment,” let alone to tell their story. After serious inducements to come forward with any story, true or false, this is all they even claim to have.
Orit Sulitzeanu, executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel told the Times “Many people are looking for the golden evidence" of survivor testimony, but he urged "don’t put this pressure on this woman.” That's fair enough when the PROPER response would include "doubting (questioning) the (alleged) victim" anyway.
Sulitzeanu says we can leave the survivors alone because “The corpses tell the story” and they tell it widely. But that story was generally not taken down before the bodies were buried. The severe lack of medical evidence has been widely noted. It's not just that images haven't been made public - in many cases, alleged abuses wind up lacking any documentation anywhere. The Times finds no differently, noting the Jewish religious imperative to bury the dead swiftly, and quoted "Moshe Fintzy, a deputy superintendent and senior spokesman of Israel’s national police, said, “We have zero autopsies, zero,” making an O with his right hand." They never did carefully figure out who was killed by Hamas' bullets, blades, or penises as opposed to weapons the IDF was using on the same battlefield. That could only complicate the crucial finding that Hamas killed them all.
And it seems there was an absolute and total failure to check for or against sexual assault. As the Times reported: "The Israeli police have acknowledged that, during the shock and confusion of Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israeli history, they were not focused on collecting semen samples from women’s bodies, requesting autopsies or closely examining crime scenes. At that moment, the authorities said, they were intent on repelling Hamas and identifying the dead."
A professor reminded the Times how “armed conflict is so chaotic” it's only natural that if the army is dropping bombs, the police forget how to collect evidence, or something like that.
So negative findings were not risked, and the question of rape was left up to the public's imagination, and of course Israeli officials have tried to lead that imagination. They insist the rapes were real, massive, and systematic and that - despite the almost total lack of evidence - everybody knows that, so that anyone who pretends to have doubts is an antisemite who secretly rejoices in the mass rape of Israeli women and girls (and even men).
Some of those who handled the bodies have reported consistent clues. Many of them are noted as unqualified to understand what they see, but some are quite imaginative, and get cited like experts in this report and before. Perhaps most prolific is "Captain Maayan," this time telling the Times how one woman had her fingernails pulled out. She and others have spoken of indirect evidence for especially brutal rape, like broken pelvises and legs. They don't say if the whole bodies were damaged like this, after being found in a tank-flattened house or a hellfire-ravaged car, or in the line of Hamas' explosive weaponry, but that seems likely enough.
In a similar vein, "The Times also viewed a video, provided by the Israeli military, showing two dead Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who appeared to have been shot directly in their vaginas," perhaps among other shots to every part of the body, or perhaps in the targeted way they suggest. Still, those were soldiers that, as we all know, Hamas executed at will. And that's still not quite rape.
.png)
The Times report also noted "Some emergency medical workers now wish they had documented more of what they saw," to bolster their outlandish descriptions. Their "deep respect for the dead" is cited for failing to do so, and also “we are not allowed to take pictures,” as ZAKA southern operations director Yossi Landau said, explaining why he didn't take any. “In retrospect, I regret it.” Others were seemingly allowed, but say they just didn't have the time (see "G" below), or they refused to photograph the evidence because of "personal limits" (Col. Golan Vach, referring to charred and beheaded baby he swears he saw in Be'eri). Any combination of these reasons is sure to explain why they almost never have any visual evidence.
Widespread, systematic rape as alleged would likely be captured on video in at least a few cases, when Hamas body cameras, common dashboard cameras, security cameras and mobile phones were all widely in play, and used to document quite a few real acts of violence. As the Times report "The Israeli authorities have no shortage of video evidence" from all these sources "showing Hamas terrorists killing civilians and many images of mutilated bodies." If they had ANY footage of a rape or related activities occurring, that's the place it should be mentioned. But it seems even from this large catalog, carefully scrutinized, no such footage was located. I'm not saying this stuff never happened, just that it seemingly never happened in front of a camera anywhere, which is strange in light of the alleged scale of the abuse.
Hiding along with Raz was "Shoam Gueta, one of Mr. Cohen’s friends and a fashion designer" who also spoke with the Times, with a more vague version of the same story. He says the attackers were “talking, giggling and shouting” as they assaulted the woman, "and that one of them stabbed her with a knife repeatedly, “literally butchering her.”" FWIW Gueta might be the one who designed Cohen's cloak for an October 7 propaganda fashion show. (https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1741364790407180448)
So there's no evidence past the words of Sapir and Yura, when there probably should be some. But it was good enough for the New York friggin' Times.
3B) 4 Witnesses, Zero Visual Evidence
Both Raz Cohen and Sapir are said to have visually proven their presence at the rave, or along Route 232 north or south of it, during the chaotic efforts to flee. That had become an issue after prolific alleged witness Niko Ostroga was found to have fabricated his presence to witness the killing of 29 friends. (Max Blumenthal on X (twitter.com)) Both witnesses also had a second witness to claim hiding with them to corroborate their stories. But all four of them failed to record - by video, still images, audio, or any form - the rapes they claim to have seen in broad daylight.
4) A Soldier/Paramedic: Two Teenage Sisters Raped
Importantly, the report adds: "Neighbors of the two girls killed — who were sisters, 13 and 16 — said their bodies had been found alone, separated from the rest of their family."
Max Blumenthal did some research here. Bringing it to the Times report authors in Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report - The Grayzone: "That paramedic appears to be the same source CNN relied on in its own special report accusing Hamas of a systematic and deliberate campaign of rape on October 7. He is a supposed paramedic from Israeli Air Force Special Tactics rescue unit 669 identified only as “G.” And like your other sources, he has proven to be an unreliable, if not deeply dishonest, witness." CNN report with the same scene described in the same style, estimating the girls at age 13-14, from "G, a paramedic in Israel's elite 669 special tactics rescue unit," (spoken audio at 6:51 What We Know About Sexual Violence on October 7th - Tug of War - Podcast on CNN Audio)
Max B suspects this G MIGHT be the same person who authored a book about his service in unit 669 as "Guy M," on government orders. If so, he's quite likely Guy Melamed, the son of Sagi Melamed, a self-proclaimed "fundraising sensei" who had promoted the book. Just out of caution, I won't endorse that link without further reading. For now there's Guy Melamed, and then there's the paramedic dubbed "G," perhaps that same Guy, who will here be called "this guy" or "G."
.png)
.png)
The Gray Zone refuted the paramedic claim by citing reports that the bodies of Lianne, Noiya and Yahel were found 'cuddled together,' not separated and partly raped. But as mentioned in this BBC report along those lines, that's just what Lianne's parents in Bristol, England, were told. They never made contact that day and "Mrs Brisley said they later found out the bodies of their daughter and grandchildren had been found by a soldier "all cuddled together with Lianne doing what a mother would do - holding her babies in her arms, trying to protect them at the end". She took this as "a small comfort" in light of "horrible images in my mind," and some "soldier" found that for her.
How many different soldiers would have found the girls? Probably just one that's spoken up, and this probably refers to the guy in question. If so, he told grandma Brisley they were all found hugging and implicitly un-raped, and then told the world, by a few sources culminating with the New York Times, that the girls WERE apparently raped.
Such duplicity would make a certain sense, trying to spare the family from the truth, but letting the world see it so they can understand Israel's war aims. But it seems neither of those stories from the soldier-rescuer(s) is true.
A more detailed report was run in the UK Sun on October 17 is based on family interviews and photographs from the site. According to this report, "It has been confirmed Yahel died alongside her mum Lianne while her sister Noiya, 16, dad Eli, 51 and uncle Yossi, 53 were missing or kidnapped." How could Noiya be found "cuddled" with the other two - or be seen raped and dead next to her sister - and also be declared "missing?"
But by this report, Noiya's body was not found anywhere in the house, and she was declared missing as of October 17. Her remains were found, likely somewhere else, and formally identified on October 22. (The Guardian 10/22) Jewish News 10/25: "Noiya was identified through her teeth only two days ago." We just buried a mother and two daughters and the father is missing. This is a second Holocaust' - Jewish News Therefore, it's difficult to see how Noiya can be seen dead "in a room" with her sister, raped or otherwise, in the immediate aftermath. I'm really going to need to see verification for the paramedic's claim. But as it so happens, he failed to document this important crime scene, and no one else got a photo until after the two alleged bodies were removed.
Still ... it was a good enough story for the New York friggin' Times with its research department and so on.
Israeli media mouthpiece Eylon Levy cited the Republic interview of this guy G, in a post on X offering to hook journalists up with the witness: "Israeli special forces paramedic describes the aftermath of the brutal rape and execution of Israeli girls in Be’eri during the October 7 Massacre." Here with translated captions, he describes two girls in "their own bedroom," as usual with one on the bed and one on the floor - then he mentions how "the girl" - not one of the girls - whom he estimated to be aged 14-15, "was laying on her bed - on the floor" (correcting himself), face down, with the signs he describes about the same as above, calling the rape "brutal, brutal." The other "girl" ... he doesn't say here. She wasn't "THE girl" or maybe not a girl at all, but the mother he sometimes calls a girl, and it seems less and less clear that she was raped. "The girl" was left to lie "in the blood of her ... in a pile of blood." He seems to correct himself before specifying WHOSE blood that was. Is that because he learned not to say "sister" and knew not to contradict it either?
Maybe he saw Lianne and Yahel and no third person, and decided both were "girls." But other reports had the two dying on separate floors, not together "in their bedroom." The other reports are preferable, and it seems likely this guy "G" was not even present at the site. He does seem informed, if still confused, about the 2-sisters vs. 2-females issue there, where he plugged his "memories" of Hamas rape evidence. Concurring with Max: "the NY Times failed to vet its sources and wound up turning to a proven fabulist for evidence."
Sagi, if that's your kid ... he's a moron.
P.S. Did G or anyone actually observe semen on the back of 13-year-old Yahel? Perhaps. But if so, the meaning isn't certain. Hamas invaders or others in their wake are probable culprits, of course - men sometimes rape even without orders. But if some other "rescuers" of the Haredi-staffed agencies ZAKA or United Hatzalah had arrived before him, it might matter that "like with many insular religious communities, the Haredis historically have an enormous sexual abuse problem." It's not limited to the infamous abuser Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the disgraced and deceased ZAKA founder. (see: "If You Say Anything to Anyone, a Zaka Van Will Run You Over" (thewaywardrabbler.com)) I'm suggesting someone in their ranks might be willing to rape an attractive corpse, if not just for the twisted pleasure of it, then for the propaganda potential of the evidence he would leave behind. But I don't really suspect this; more likely, this rape evidence never existed outside the world of words. With maybe some scattered exceptions, I would guess no one raped anyone in this attack, at least for being far too busy with other things.
P.S. What happened to Noiya? We can only guess, and so I will. Her mother and sister may have been perceived as offering resistance and swiftly killed, or were killed on accident as the terrorists blasted through some locked door, or the like. Perhaps they were able to spare Noiya and take her captive, maybe injured. They might take her along with others to another house, where she and the rest were killed - perhaps by Hamas or, quite possibly, in one of the IDF tank and/or helicopter attacks that seemingly collapsed several homes in Be'eri. These mysterious events prevented several dozen abductions by killing the captives along with their captors, and it seems this happened by design. We've heard several accounts and even seen video from just one of these, but there were several others with stories left untold, and Noiya Sharabi's true story quite likely intertwines with one of those.
5) Gal Abdush, Some Video Evidence, and the Misleading of a Family
The Times report led with the case of Gal Abdush, probably because there actually WAS video evidence involved in this rare case. As the Times relates the story, Gal attended the rave with her husband Nagi Abdush, until the attack began just after sunrise. They apparently fled early and made it some ways north on route 232 before they were killed under murky circumstances, leaving behind 2 children. Gal and Nagi Abdush, 34 & 35: Couple were 'best friends' | The Times of Israel
As the Times explained: "That night, Eden Wessely, a car mechanic, drove to the rave site with three friends and found Ms. Abdush sprawled half naked on the road next to her burned car, about nine miles north of the site. ... lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed."
.png)
More importantly "Based largely on the video evidence — which was verified by The New York Times — Israeli police officials said they believed that Ms. Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks."
Was this conclusion based "largely" or "totally" on this video evidence? Again, nowhere was forensic evidence for or against rape gathered, and no witness claims that I've seen, including in this report, indicates that Gal was raped. So it's not clear what other evidence there would be.
The Electronic Intifada & the Gray Zone (at least by citation) seem to not recognize it; "There is currently no trace of the video on the internet despite the Times claim that it “went viral.”" Perhaps due just to the nudity it includes, the video is not allowed on the usual platforms, but it frequently appears, is scrubbed, and re-appears. Still images and discussion of it abound. Max Blumenthal did well enough discussing the video at one point (recalled now as "I demonstrated months ago that Abdush had been killed by an explosion.").I saw the video on Hamas-Massacre.net. The body's pose with spread legs COULD be natural or unrelated to rape, and her lack of underwear with the skimpy dress COULD be her deliberate choice. But between them, I see the suggested rape everyone else does. However ... In part 3, I included some clues that she was killed by an Apache's 30mm cannon shell that somehow tore across her right thigh before detonating on impact with the ground and taking off the back of her head. There are other explanations for the different injuries, including that some are postmortem. But judging by the images alone, she most likely died from the massive head injury (a split scalp and broken edge of her skull near the crown are just visible enough in the video).
I also argued how it was several hours after her death that Mrs. Abdush's body was moved into the seen pose. If her right arm sticks up like that due to rigor mortis, as I suspect, she was probably in a different position, perhaps face-down and/or in a complex situation, for at least 8-10 hours before this twisted bit of staging. And the burning of her upper left torso, left arm, and face was seemingly done only then, in this final position.
If the seen pose is the "proof" of Hamas rape and a fit basis for genocide and ethnic cleansing against the people of Gaza ... and someone artificially arranged that pose, perhaps to also conceal another death by IDF "friendly fire" ... well, that would be damn troubling. But the good news would be that, judging by the massive lack of visual evidence for rape, this kind of staging was not widespread.
My next step, maybe taken slowly as well, is to reconsider the physical-visual "OSINT" evidence in light of the new reports and all else, to see if I can confirm that initial view or find an even better explanation that might be of actual help in clearing up this ongoing confusion. I'll be citing some great OSINT work by Michael Kobs at this thread: Michael Kobs on X: "The circumstances of Gal Abdush's death raise very serious questions indeed.)
But briefly here, from the articles I've read: Gal's last message was at 6:51 am, quoted as "we are at the border, and you can’t imagine sounds of explosions around us." Also given: simply "You don't understand." Her killing was apparently around 7am, as reported then by her husband Nagi - he mentioned how "they" had "shot" Gal, unclear where or with what, and she was "dying" - maybe less suddenly than I would expect by the head wound (and reports I've seen don't have Apache helicopters up quite this early). "They" presumably means Hamas, although it's not clear if he could know just who Gal was "shot" by. Nagi continued sending messages for another 45 minutes before he too was killed, at the end asking his brother to watch out for their kids. Apparently none of the messages mentioned anyone raping Gal, burning her alive, or anything of the sort.
As geolocated by Michael Kobs, they died near the "Mefalsim Battle" as given at Mapping the Massacres (oct7map.com) where Hamas hardly killed or kidnapped anyone as they crumbled under an aggressive defense that day, with a lot of deaths, and some civilian deaths on the highway just after that "dangerous curve." Gal and Nagi at least died there but weren't mapped there. At right, from Michael's thread: the location of Gal's body and the car (Nagi is badly charred and partly missing, on the other side of the car)
Between messages from Gal and Nagi, the police, and everything they knew, the family heard nothing about suspicions or evidence for rape until the Times reporters showed up.
The report says family members saw the Wessely video of Gal's remains, recognized them, and “feared that she might have been raped.” Perhaps someone was coaxed to agree that though had crossed their mind(s). But the victim's sister Miral Alter stated in a January 2 Instagram comment that she doubted the rape claims and all the reasons given to support them, and complained “the New York Times that came to us indicated that they wanted to do a story in memory of Gal and Nagy and that’s why we approved. If we knew that it was a headline like rape slaughter, we would never agree. Never.” Gal Abdush’s mother Etti Brakha, her sister Tali Barakha, and Nagi’s brother Nissim Abdush have also lodged similar complaints, as compiled at Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report - The Grayzone
Some respond to this with a Hebrew-language article at Ynet from December 31, wherein Gal's mother, her brother Rami Bracka, and Nagi's mother now seem to believe that Gal was in fact raped. But they all "learned" this from the Times report and/or its journalists' assurances that, as Gal's mother put it, "they cross-checked the testimonies and said Gal had been sexually assaulted" - somebody witnessed it. But no testimonies that I've seen, and none that the Times shared, sheds any light on Gal's demise, except for Nagi's messages, which of course mentioned no such thing. Did the reporters pull a trick here?
Gals mother, Etti Brakha: "We didn't know about the rape at first, only when the New York Times reporter contacted us did we know. They said they cross-checked the testimonies and said Gal had been sexually assaulted. We still don't know exactly what happened." She also thinks "There is evidence that they saw my daughter's sexual assault." As far as we've seen, there's evidence that Nagi saw no such thing (his failing to mention it), and no other testimony to contradict that. If the reporters suggested otherwise, they might have been dishonest.
Rami Brakha, Gal's brother: "It was only in the New York Times investigation that we understood from the journalists that my sister had been raped. It was hard to know what she went through before she was shot and murdered." But by some magic they still can't explain, Gettleman, Schwartz and Sella had figured it out for the family.
Finally, Nagi's mother recalls "That morning, my son Nagi called us and said, '[they] Kill her, shoot her,' and screamed on the phone on speakerphone. Only now, after hearing what they did to Gal, do I try to think about what my son saw with his own eyes, how his wife was sexually abused, before they shot her and then shot him." It would be easy to not think about it earlier, when Nagi spoke of no such thing. Even now, that should make very limited sense.
So those folks don't seem to feel misled by the reporters, even though they probably should. And I haven't seen Miral Alter, for one, act convinced by the Times' tricks. She was clear in denying Gal's rape even after the report. She knew to cite the timeline of private messages to point out "It doesn’t make any sense that in four minutes, they raped her, slaughtered her, and burned her.” Neither does it make sense that her husband would fail to mention any of that in his final minutes and several communications.
A leading pose and an inspired police reading, and supposedly some other, unseen "testimony" led the Times to decide on rape. The family had no reason yet to form this idea, but when the reporters came in so confident, some members were convinced, if also confused. Of course, journalists are supposed to follow stories, not plant them in their subjects' minds as was seemingly done here, to get them involved and seeming to support the claims. Some of them still do not buy the claims and the rest might, but apparently for no reason past the same journalistic tricks under discussion here.
On Rising via Max Blumenthal on X
Watch: NY Times "investigation" of mass rape by Hamas falls apart | The Electronic Intifada
Conclusion: And that, folks, is how the New York friggin' Times crafted its big assist for the Netanyahu regime's ongoing genocide in Gaza.
