Israel "Bringing Home" its Hostages - in Caskets

January 29, 2024

Adds on 2/3, Big adds Feb. 11-13

The Israeli Defense Forces continues its massive violence in Gaza aimed at eradicating Hamas and finding the remaining Israeli hostages to "bring them all home." Going on four months in, they claim one successful rescue. 

Private Ori Megidish, a lookout soldier from Nahal Oz Base, was reportedly rescued on early in the offensive, on October 30. It wasn't clear if she was actually rescued or willingly released. An initial IDF statement said Megidish was “released,” but that was a "translation error," they said - she was “actively rescued." (CNN) Israeli MFA spokesperson Yaari Cohen later said the supposed rescue provided "hope to millions of Israelis that more hostages can be released." 

Four days before that rescue, on October 26, Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades announced that Israel had killed “almost 50 captives” in missile and air strikes. (The Gray Zone) This has never been proven, confirmed, or agreed, but it might well be true - Israel got a solid start to "freeing" the hostages by killing some 20% of them in the first weeks. Other cases we'll consider below all postdate this possible total and would add to it. 

Interestingly, pvt. Megidish was missing from initial listings of those kidnapped, according to some observers, until she was added on the day of her rescue. (Hala Jaber). An oddity: a terrorist computer found in al-Shifa hospital had a public photo of pvt. Megidish as its wallpaper. "Why would this PC only contain one picture of a “single rescued Israeli soldier” which was earlier captured and brought to Gaza." https://twitter.com/ytirawi/status/1724881517082525860 Maybe she was never captured, and the photo was brought in to make some kind of case for that? I'm still not sure what to make of that or what it was even meant to signify, but it seems like a strange coincidence.

The Megidish case might have given people hope, but if that didn't fall flat from the strange details, it would be deflated after the following weeks of Israel's brutal destruction of the same Gaza the hostages were sheltered in. Aside from the one case, they've apparently rescued no hostages, but it seems they've killed quite a few. 

Some 240+ hostages were originally tallied. Some 109 were released by Hamas before December 16, when CNN reported "132 captives were believed to still in Gaza, of whom 112 were thought to still be alive." But since then, the IDF had accidentally killed three, so it was 129 held, 109 of them alive =  20 dead. (CNN) January 15, Times of Israel: "It is believed that 132 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November. Four hostages were released prior to that, and one was rescued by troops. The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and three hostages were mistakenly killed by the military. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 25 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza."

Tallies will vary a bit with small details I don't know, but let's compare mid-December and mid-January. 132-25=107 still alive - just 2 less than a month earlier (109 on Dec. 16). 25 dead vs. 20 = up five. Below, I count six hostages likely killed by the IDF in that span. They may be responsible for all the added deaths.

The website https://oct7map.com/ currently lists 112 hostages released alive by Hamas - mainly during grudgingly-agreed cease-fires - and 138 still held, assumed alive or not confirmed as dead. The site lists at least 24 hostages specified as "Murdered in Captivity." We'll exclude one (Ilan Weiss) who was assumed kidnapped then reported dead, but he was actually found at his home, killed on October 7. That leaves 23. With the others listed, that gives a suggested total of at least 274 original hostages - more than the 240 or so first reported.

Of these 23, half of them - 11 - were likely killed in known IDF actions, with reasons to suspect that already published. The deadly actions include at least 2 airstrikes, a botched rescue effort, a tunnel attack on Hamas leaders (perhaps with toxic gas), and hostages directly surrendering to the IDF who were shot dead instead of taken home.

One hostage - Guy Illouz - was noted as killed by medical neglect (and with sanctions, etc. that might be partly the IDF's fault). note 2/3: Judith/Yehudit Weiss also "was a cancer patient, and after her abduction, her family expressed concern for her health, assuming she would not receive the necessary medical treatment while in captivity."  And then she might die, or be "murdered," as listed.  https://nachamuami.com/fallen/yehudit-weiss/ 

The other half -  also 11 - are unclear. Some were elderly and likely died from other medical issues, including limitations imposed on all Humans currently stuck in Gaza. The rest, like the other 11, are listed and/or reported as killed by Hamas, but may have been killed in other IDF strikes - no details were given in most cases. As far as I see, there are no proven Hamas executions among the 23. 

Add 2/3: Soldier Naama Levy has not been "murdered" that we know of, but she may have been seen lightly injured after an Israeli attack in late November. https://twitter.com/MatamalasJ/status/1736431066188013571

If, as al-Qassam claimed, "almost 50" hostages - say ~47 - were killed in IDF attacks by late October, this 11 would make for at least ~58 killed in IDF actions or otherwise following in the assault and sanctions. The other 11 could make for ~69 - with perhaps others unreported or lost in the shuffle. Just 106 or so are thought to remain alive, and that's probably high. And again, none of them have been rescued aside from the one dubious case. 

As Udi Goren, whose cousin was killed by Hamas, told CNN “The ground invasion" - all the killing in the name of rescuing the hostages - "is killing the hostages.” (CNN) So far, at the immense cost to Gazan civilians and some IDF troops, the hostages only come home in caskets. 

But in a related development, Gaza is getting quite flat and unlivable, as have the bodies of some 20-30,000 Gazans. Considering that and all the other pros and cons, it seems worth continuing the war - likely through all of 2024 (BBC). Maybe after another 10,000 children are killed the hostages can all brought home, and perhaps a handful of them can even come home alive. But even if none of them does, maybe 100,000 will be killed in Gaza, and the rest may all have to "voluntarily" relocate in order to survive, so to some minds it will seem well worth the effort.

23 Total "Murdered in Captivity"

name - location - notes ("murdered" = no further details I know of)

1 Inbar Haiman - Music Festival - "murdered"

2 Guy Illouz - Music Festival - "murdered due to intentional prevention of proper medical care"

3 Elia Toledano - Music Festival - "murdered"  likely in 12/14 IDF tunnel attack

4 Yossi Sharabi - Be'eri - "murdered" after IDF strike in mid-January

5 Yonatan Samerano - Be'eri - "murdered"

6 Itay Svirski - Be'eri - "murdered" after IDF strike in mid-January

7 Sahar Baruch - Be'eri - "murdered" during IDF rescue effort Dec 8

8 Ofra Kedar - Be'eri - "murdered"

9 Judith Weiss - Be'eri - "murdered" - cancer patient - found near Shifa hospital when Cpl. Marciano was found, spurring Israel's mass-removal of bodies 

10 Eitan Levy - Be'eri - "murdered" after IDF strike in mid-January 

11 Alon Lulu Shamriz - Kfar Aza - "murdered" accidentally by IDF after escaping captivity, 12/15

12 Yotam Haim - Kfar Aza - "murdered" accidentally by IDF after escaping captivity, 12/15

13 Ronen Engel - Nir Oz - "murdered"

14 Eliyahu Margalit - Nir Oz - "murdered"

15 Gadi Haggai - Nir Oz - "murdered"

16 Maya Goren - Nir Oz - "murdered"

17 Judy W'stein Haggai Nir Oz - "murdered"

18 Arye Zalmanovich - Nir Oz - "murdered"

19 Cpl. Noa Marciano - Nahal Oz base - "murdered" at Shifa hospital "quickly" after injury in IDF strike, 11/9 - body found near hosp. when Judith Weiss was found

20 Joshua Mollel - Nahal Oz - "murdered"

21 Samar Fouad Talalka - Nir Am - "murdered" accidentally by IDF after escaping captivity, 12/15

22 Ron Scherman - COGAT Base - "murdered"  likely in 12/14 IDF tunnel attack

23 Nik Beizer - COGAT Base - "murdered" likely in 12/14 IDF tunnel attack

In a picture:

Sources (by incident date):

November 9 strike on Noa Marciano's captor but not on her - 11/17: Body of second Israeli hostage found near Shifa Hospital in Gaza: IDF | National Post "On Monday night, Hamas released a video of Marciano that the Israel Defense Forces described as “psychological terror.” The video claimed that Marciano was killed in an airstrike in Gaza." 

https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1726368486027403419

"On November 9, CPL Noa Marciano was injured from an IAF strike and the terrorist holding her hostage was neutralized. Following a preliminary pathological report, it was revealed that Noa’s injury was not life-threatening." These injuries are not described. Then, they say, "Noa was murdered by a Hamas terrorist in the Shifa Hospital." because it's absurd to think the same IDF strike that killed her captor could also kill her. And they took her to the hospital - that's a dead giveaway that they planned to murder her. 

The fatal injuries, added to the unclear injuries from the strike, were described (1st source): “After analyzing the footage, experts suggest that her injuries do not align with those typically sustained in airstrikes,” the IDF said in a statement. “The observed wounds appear more consistent with bullet injuries, and there is also an indication that she may have suffered from injuries related to a fall from a height.” So she was quickly shot all over and dropped from a height once they had her in the hospital? That's not the most likely, but it's implied these injuries appeared AFTER the airstrike injuries, which they don't describe - since they don't seem to be from an airstrike. That should be all you need to know to understand these were later, execution-related injuries. Why did they need to consider if they were from some other airstrike? Or are they talking about the same injuries allegedly from their own attack? Did she suffer those supposedly atypical injuries in their strike, and are those - as far as they know - the same injuries she died from? If so, why does their being atypical matter? In other words, they seem to be dissembling badly.

IDF rescue effort Dec 8: Sahar Baruch from Be'eri was killed. A botched hostage rescue was reported Dec. 8 - 2 soldiers were badly wounded and, sadly, no hostages rescued - but some kidnappers were killed, and definitely no hostages were killed (the possibility wasn't even mentioned). (Times of Israel)

Later: Jan. 3 Hostage Sahar Baruch killed during rescue attempt a month ago, IDF says | The Times of Israel "The IDF has notified the family of hostage Sahar Baruch that he was killed during a failed attempt to rescue him from Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip on December 8. The military says it is unable to determine the cause of death at this stage, and it is unknown if Baruch was murdered by Hamas or killed by Israeli fire. Hamas at the time claimed that Baruch was killed by the IDF, publishing footage of his body." Hamas executed him during the IDF effort to free him. If only the IDF had gotten there sooner ... Or was that not a coincidence? Did the attack provoked Hamas to kill him, or ... he was one of the "kidnappers" initially reported killed? 

Aviva Klompas on X 12/8: "The video released today ends by showing his tortured and mutilated body. Rather than screaming for the release of the hostages who are enduring untold evils, the world wants Israel to retreat. There can be no ceasefire until all the hostages are released and the Hamas war machine is destroyed." The IDF needs to go in there, guns blazing, or else these murders will never be stopped. Could he not see the possible connection to the day's failed raid and think to temper such comments? Most likely she could see that and was operating from an aggressive defiance of reality, fully expecting to win over reality in the end.

December 14 tunnel attack: Jan. 17, Jerusalem Post via MSN: "The IDF could not confirm the cause of death of killed Gaza hostages Ron Sherman and Nick Beiser, the military confirmed in a Wednesday statement. Their bodies were retrieved from a Hamas tunnel by the IDF in Jabalya on December 14, 2023, together with the body of Elia Toledano. ... Close to where the bodies were found, the IDF attacked a tunnel in which the commander of the northern division of Gaza, Ahmad Al Ghandour, was killed. The investigation shows that at the time of the attack, the IDF did not know about the presence of hostages in the area. Also, the forces who found their bodies during searches in the tunnel did not have prior intelligence about their presence." 

"Ron Sherman’s mother, Maya, published a post yesterday in which she accused the IDF of mistakingly [sic] killing her son. “The results of the investigation: Ron was indeed murdered,” she wrote. “Not by Hamas. Think more in the direction of Auschwitz and the showers but without Nazis and without Hamas as the cause. No accidental shooting, no report, premeditated murder, bombings with poisonous gases.” According to her, the IDF filled the tunnel in which he was held with gas, and [her] son was poisoned to death."

Her full reasoning can't be assessed, but here's some commentary she added: 

“Ron was kidnapped because of the criminal negligence of all the senior officials of the army and the damned government who gave the order to eliminate him in order to settle a score with some terrorist from Jabalya.” The mother claimed that “they found that he also had several crushed fingers, apparently due to his desperate attempts to get out of the poison grave that the IDF buried in him when he tried to breathe air, but he only breathed IDF poison. There is no future for this country if this is what they did to you after they abandoned you that Saturday. What was the decision if Bibi’s son was there in the terrorist’s tunnel or Gallant’s grandson? Or the son of Hertzi Halevi? Would they also have been poisoned with gas bombs?”

On the 12/14 strike - The Messenger via MSN: Top Hamas Commander Who Survived Two Assassination Attempts Killed in Israeli Airstrike (msn.com) - no mention of any chemical weapons employed in the operation. 

Before, October 26, Former Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal: "We have information from trusted sources that the [US's] plan with Israel is to send special American/Israeli forces, administered by the US and executed either by Israel or combined [US and Israel] to... use nerve gases, aiming to paralyse the capabilities of Palestinian soldiers in the tunnels and trenches without killing him so they do not kill the hostages or captives held in these tunnels," he said. (Middle East Eye ) But this wouldn't explain hostages in the tunnels dying. 

Sponge bombs? This came up at the same time. In itself, the stuff is dangerous to the eyes, but otherwise non-toxic. Does Israel Really Have 'Sponge Bombs' For Sealing Tunnels? (thedrive.com) Nothing meant to kill has been publicly discussed. But a tunnel sealed with sponge material might become extra lethal if any kind of gas was then poured in. We also know they've flooded some tunnels with sea water. As far as I know, that's what they did here.  

"Also, on December 12, 2023, the IDF recovered the bodies of Aden [Eden] Zakaria and Ziv Dado from the same area." (Jerusalem Post via MSN) Both are now thought to be killed on 10/7, bodies kidnapped to Gaza for later exchange. But both were considered missing until found dead. Were they actually kidnapped alive and then killed in this same incident, or another incident related to the same assault? I've seen no details like the state of decay they were in when found. 

December 15 IDF Shooting: Truly appalling - Alon Shimriz and Yotam Haim from Kfar Aza, along with Samer Talalka kidnapped near Nir Am, were somehow free and wandering Shejaya under Israel's bombing and then ground assault. We don't even know the story they would tell about how they escaped captivity before they found fellow Israelis, approaching the IDF soldiers cautiously with a white flag. The soldiers apparently saw a ruse and opened fire, killing 2 (unclear which) and wounding the third. He hid and cried for help in Hebrew. The shooting stopped, then somehow resumed, and the third guy was also killed. The IDF just cannot get these people back home alive, even when they escape on their own and even when they do that AND survive the first round of inexplicable shooting. There just has to be another round of shooting. (you should know this story - CNN just in case)

January 15 IDF airstrike: Killed on or around Jan. 15 after an IDF airstrike: Yossi Sharabi, 51 and Itay Svirsky, 38, from Be'eri. Eitan Levy was also killed. Details left unresolved on my end.  

A posts on the Jan. 15 Hamas video - https://twitter.com/OliLondonTV/status/1746998477593203160: an injured Noa Argamani says an IDF airstrike killed Sharabi and Svirsky. But Oli notes "one of the men appears to have died from a severe head wound with the other showing signs of strangulation- pointing to Hamas being responsible for their deaths. It comes after the terror group released a video game style propaganda video asking viewers to guess which hostages were alive or dead."

January 15, Times of Israel - via MSN: IDF fears for the lives of the 2 men after seeing the video where they seem dead. 

"IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Monday evening that Hamas’s claim that the military targeted a building where the three hostages were being held, killing two of them, was a lie. However, he indicated that it was possible that the hostages were located close to a building that was targeted by the IDF and may have been endangered." “Itay was not killed by our forces. This is a Hamas lie,” Hagari said. “The building where they were held was not a target and was not attacked by our forces.” They know this because “We did not know their exact location in real-time. We do not strike where we know there are hostages. In retrospect, we know that we attacked targets close to the location where they were held,” Hagari said, adding that the IDF was investigating the footage in the propaganda clip published by Hamas.

They won't strike unless they know the hostages aren't there - but they don't know where they were - it's "possible" they were in a nearby building. Actually, "in retrospect, we know" they were in a nearby building, but they aren't sure which one or how nearby. Couldn't they also be in the same building? Sure, but they didn't know that, and "the IDF do not strike where we know there are hostages." So if the IDF killed them, it was accidental, and the Hamas claim that the IDF accidentally killed them is a terrorist lie.

Add 2/11: Noa claims on video: F-16 strike, 3 rockets, 2 of which exploded. Only Yossi was killed then; Noa and Itay survived, were relocated, but Itay was killed by another IDF airstrike at that time. Between the two strikes, Noa says she suffered shrapnel injuries to the head and body. She also notes that food and water are running low.  https://t.me/resistmirror1/2996

Hagari "said ... Hamas’s claim that the military targeted a building where the three hostages were being held, killing two of them, was a lie. ... “Itay was not killed by our forces. This is a Hamas lie.” If the unstated part is: "we only killed Yossi then. Itay came later," then he agrees with Hamas and Noa, wordplay aside.  

Add 2/11: Eitan Levy died separately and much earlier - before Dec. 8. Not sure how he got mixed in with these reports.  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israel-confirms-oct-7-death-of-be-eri-resident-dror-kaplun-with-archaeologists-help/ar-AA1lbCk2

"On Friday the Bat Yam municipality said Eitan Levy was dead. He was previously considered a hostage in Gaza. The municipality said it was informed Thursday night by the IDF that Levy was no longer alive. His body is held in Gaza. It was not clear how and when Levy was murdered."

Adds Feb. 11: 

Some listed as kidnapped and still alive, likely aren't, including an infant and a toddler. Embarrassingly, I had missed this story when it came up, and when I assembled this post. 

Nov 29: Hamas says 10-month-old hostage Kfir Bibas was killed in Israeli bombing, alongside his brother, Ariel (4), and their mother, Shiri, in earlier bombing. This was to explain why they weren't among those released at the time. But "Israeli authorities on Tuesday said they believed the family had been handed over by Hamas to another Palestinian militant group in a possible complication of efforts to free them." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/29/hamas-says-10-month-old-hostage-kfir-bibas-was-killed-in-israeli-bombing

As of mid-February there's been no further news to challenge the Hamas claim, and these hostages have likely been dead for some time now. They're likely included in the ~50 early deaths, but add to the 11 considered above, for 14 likely killed in known IDF operations. But that's still not accepted, as people demand Kfir be brought home, and Oct7map lists "Yarden, Shiri, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, the entire Bibas family, were all kidnapped by Hamas. Bring them home." From Nir Oz. Father Yarden was likely kept separately and likely survived, at least to then. 

I think these 2 children are the only ones Hamas still allegedly refuses to release. If so, note they already explained why they cannot ever release them, and as far as we can tell it's true.

One listed as just "murdered" was apparently killed in captivity - Ofir Tzarfati, 27 was abducted from the Nova party. He was reportedly severely wounded. "He was believed to have been kidnapped for over 50 days; it was only after his family received the devastating news that he had been murdered. A few days later, the IDF has retrieved his body in a special operation inside Gaza." https://oct7map.com/OfirTzarfati

Dec. 2: his family "was informed on Thursday that he was murdered by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip." He likely died from his severe injury and lack of medical options, but that's just a guess. https://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/israel-news/2243758/idf-recovers-captives-body-confirms-deaths-of-6-captives-in-gaza.html 

2 new deaths reported Feb. 11: Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip during the past 96 hours have killed two Israeli hostages and seriously injured eight others, Hamas's armed-wing Al Qassam Brigades announced on Sunday over the group's Telegram channel.

"Their conditions are becoming more dangerous in light of the inability to provide them with appropriate treatment.(Israel) bears full responsibility for the lives of those injured in light of their continued bombing," the statement said." Identities not provided.

That makes 16 and likely to grow. "Israel’s chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Tuesday that 31 of the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza were dead." That's up 6 since a month ago, up 11 from mid-December - probably not counting these 2 new deaths.

اليوم الـ 128.. القسام يؤكد مقتل أسيرين وإصابة 8 آخرين : كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام (alqassam.ps)

https://www.arabnews.jp/en/middle-east/article_115008/

France 24 live updates for the 11th relate the claims of new deaths and notes, on the same day "Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in an interview aired on Sunday that "enough" of the 132 remaining Israeli hostages held in Gaza are alive to justify Israel's ongoing war in the region." "We're going to try to do our best to get all those who are alive back and, frankly, also the bodies of the dead," he said in the interview with ABC's "This Week" programme." As long as this many remain alive, Israel will keep on killing them, refusing any ceasefire or concession even to save their lives, fearing that it would also spare Palestinian lives. https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240211-%F0%9F%94%B4-live-netanyahu-pledges-safe-passage-to-palestinian-civilians-ahead-of-rafah-operation

Add 2/12: Qassam brigades says three of the injured 8 hostages have now died. That would make 5 more killed. They're waiting to see who else dies before releasing the names and final statuses.  "The Al-Qassam Brigades announce the killing of 3 of the eight Zionist detainees who we announced yesterday were seriously injured in the barbaric Zionist raids on the Gaza Strip. We will postpone announcing the names and photos of the dead for days to come until the fate of the rest of the wounded becomes clear." https://t.me/resistmirror1/3927

Feb. 13 add: Two Rescued! 

Just after the above updates, I saw the big news - Israel claims to have rescued two hostages in Rafah and got them home alive, without making any deal with Hamas, and in fact killing some of their fighters, along with quite a few civilians. The rescued were named as Fernando Simon Marman (60) and Louis Har (70), who were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak. 

As luck would have it, Israel's actionable intel and opportunity came just as they aired a Superbowl ad about bringing home hostage dads. And these two fathers had Argentinian nationality. Argentina's bizarre new Libertarian-Fascist and highly pro-Israel president Javier Milei had just visited Israel on Feb. 9, urging the release of all Israeli hostages, including the 11 Argentinians believed to be held. "Milei said he would work to bring about the release of all the hostages, regardless of nationality: “There are Argentine nationals among the hostages as well, but this is a crime against humanity, and this must be redressed.”" 

https://jewishinsider.com/2024/02/javier-milei-argentina-israel-benjamin-netanyahu-jerusalem/

These 11 included, "most famously, Shiri and Yarden Bibas and their redheaded sons Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 1." However, as noted above, that whole family, perhaps excluding Yarden, were likely killed by the IDF months ago. So there were probably 8 Argentines tops, and then 2 of them were rescued about three days later. Milei was soon thanking Israel for this feat, in even greater awe of their amazing powers. 

That's all interesting and raises vague suspicions. Nonetheless, I don't suspect the event was faked or postdated as some have argued, finding that one of the men was freed in November and/or December, or from Khan Younis instead of Rafah, or that both were freed on February 2, not 12. The latter anyway is likely a typo and the others ... something. I haven't read up on all the details, but consider: "Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said special forces broke into a second-floor apartment in Rafah under fire at 1:49 a.m. Monday, accompanied a minute later by airstrikes on surrounding areas." As if describing the same thing, Gaza's Health Ministry says at least 67 civilians were killed in Rafah airstrikes at around "2 a.m." 

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-02-12-2024-4ade5edf47711c6b0c13d1380980de2b

There are aerial thermal imaging videos of the raid and a related bomb strike that Israel has published (from various posting on X, not cited here but not hard to find). These depict complex, rescue-like movements at a certain spot in Rafah. After some flailing and then a lucky break, I was actually able to geolocate the spot, by the matching details shown below (some labels for matching details, some indicating raid details, partly from the videos and here just copied for consistency, and another 100+ matching details not indicated): 31°17'46.01"N - 34°15'24.71"E. 

https://twitter.com/CL4Syr/status/1757383431988941274

It's near city center, not on the outskirts at all. It seems the rescue was in the middle building with a red circle where a shooter was located. The building to the north has been hit and is intensely burning (purple box). The one to the south is also bombed on its roof, perhaps twice (there seems to be a hole above, at the yellow star, just before a powerful blast is shown there). It's not clear how many civilians died in this area vs. at the refugee camp also hit that night or in any other parts of Rafah, but the overall death toll wound up over 100 and still climbing as the severely injured continued to pass away. Children are of course included once again. https://twitter.com/doamuslims/status/1756860608941641763

Words Without Truth: How the New York Times Helped Netanyahu Weaponize Sexual Violence Allegations Against the People of Gaza

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. 

"The Times viewed photographs of one woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin." It seems quite possible the house collapse - likely after an IDF tank attack - is what drove nails into this part of her body and perhaps other parts, besides other random cruelties that occur when a house collapses on you. See the example image at right, (NOT the same image the Times saw) and consider how justified the caption would be. Likely all of it was called "torture" in the official investigation; Maybe "Hamas" tore off someone's right arm with a splintered and burning section of support beam, etc..

 

In this case, the Times reporter(s) seem to endorse this reading, having seen the image. But this reading differs from that of 2 rescuers describing what is most likely the same scene, despite the differences. If so, note the variance between the recorded and the remembered. 

A ZAKA rescuer saw with "professional eyes" a naked woman with a single "sharp object" stuck in "the intimate area of her body," along with "part of a ceiling" in "a building that was completely destroyed."  (https://twitter.com/MorHogeg/status/1729140621859049690) Another ZAKA rescuer reports "two women in Be'eri tied to beds, one with a knife in her vagina and her organs removed. After brutally violating these women, Hamas detonated the house on them, so we found them beneath a pile of stones." (MeToo unless you're a Jew - UnHerd) - (MarinaMedvin on X) - "One was sexually terrorised with a knife stuck in her vagina and all her internal organs removed," (BBC 12/5). A knife, some nails, whatever. It was some deliberate Hamas cruelty prior to the house collapse, which Hamas also engineered.

To their credit, the NYT did not include the allegation of some rescuers of a pregnant woman cut open so the terrorists could remove and execute her fetus before her eyes. That was an absolute crock with only the thinnest links to reality, as I established here on December 18. A December 5 BBC report had included it (but differentlty, with "her foetus stabbed while it was inside her.") noting "The BBC has not been able to independently verify this account, and Israeli media reports have questioned some testimony from volunteers working in the traumatic aftermath of the Hamas attacks."

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.

There has been imagery cited as indirect evidence for rape, with at least 3 scenes apparently included in Israel's 43-minute private-screening atrocity video. As I reviewed that in part 4, these scenes were:

* relevant / inconclusive (bloody pants can have a few causes)

* irrelevant / fake (recycled photo of a killed Kurdish fighter - adding BBC 12/5 seems to mention this scene as genuine ("women naked from the waist down, or with their underwear ripped to one side"), shortly after it had been exposed and removed from the Israeli-run Hamas-Massacre.net website and apparently from the IDF's 43-minute video, whereas Jewish News editor Jotam Confino describes it clearly enough as included back in late October ("on the grass" "her panties taken half off"))

* relevant / even worse (a possible Apache helicopter victim, re-posed hours after death to suggest rape).

The latter became central to this Times report as "the woman in the black dress," now identified as Gal Abdush. That story has been central for me as well, but decentralized in coverage - see section 5 below, linking to an earlier post I had included her in. I hope to assemble a dedicated review post, especially now that the alleged rape victim's family is complaining about the Times' part in spreading a bloated myth. They should be better informed than the reporters, and they had no reason to suspect Gal had been raped, until the reporters convinced some of them, then pretended it was the other way around, citing the family as further evidence for rape. Others remain unconvinced and feel misled; Gal's sister Miral Alter put it: "If we knew that it was a headline like rape slaughter, we would never agree. Never.” 

But first, some consideration of two other lines of evidence that were central to the Times report: 

- two pairs of direct (alleged) witnesses (each containing a "security consultant") claiming to have seen rape, murder and mutilation at the rave, and 

- a military paramedic who says he saw 2 teenage sisters who had clearly been raped.

 

Noting that military members and "security consultants" are especially likely to assist in a state-sponsored coverup and propaganda operation, it should be little surprise that their shifting stories clash with the more credible evidence, and of course none of them has a single image to back up any of it. 

3) The "Security Consultant" Witnesses to Rapes at the Rave 

3A) Four Witnesses with Two (Final) Stories

The Times relied heavily on two alleged witnesses, each backed with a more B-list co-witness,  to the rape, murder, torture and mutilation of several young women fleeing the Nova music festival, along highway 232. 

Raz Cohen is "a young Israeli who had also attended the rave and had worked recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo training Congolese soldiers," as the Times notes. Picture caption: "Raz Cohen, a security consultant, survived the Oct. 7 attacks by hiding in a dried-up streambed."  - elsewhere he's noted as "a discharged officer from the Maglan Patrol," an elite reconnaissance unit. (kan.org.il Dec. 14) It's unclear why he was discharged - perhaps partying and drugs.

The Times heard from Cohen in "an hour-and-a-half interview in a Tel Aviv restaurant." He claims he hid in a dry riverbed "along Route 232 ... about a mile southwest of the party area," when he witnessed five Palestinian men in civilian clothes in a white van, "all carrying knives and one carrying a hammer" pull up "maybe 40 yards in front of him." Cohen says he watched the men drag a "young, naked and screaming" woman across the ground to a spot where they gathered. “She’s standing up," he recalled. "They start raping her. I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. ... Then one of them raises a knife,” he said, “and they just slaughtered her.” The Times let Cohen provide the article's title, from his poetic line: "I still remember her voice, screams without words.” 

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) 

Raz Cohen gets the purpose of these stories and the motive why he might exaggerate or invent one: he said in one interview to Israeli media he plans to re-enlist in the IDF to join the fight in Gaza or wherever, because "I need revenge, to live with myself" after allegedly witnessing those horrors, and being unable to stop or document them. "After this" - including the unsupported story he tells - "Gaza [will] not continue to be [on] the map."

https://twitter.com/Wahb_Allat/status/1712070021999165825

"Sapir," a 24-year-old accountant, "has become one of the Israeli police’s key witnesses," the Times reported. Her name full name is withheld for fear of "hounding." She sounds easy to dox, and perhaps eager for it, thinking herself well-poised for a profile-raising lawsuit. She gave the Times "a two-hour interview outside a cafe in southern Israel" 

Around 8 a.m., Sapir says, "she was hiding under the low branches of a bushy tamarisk tree, just off Route 232, about four miles southwest of the party." From there she saw "groups of heavily armed gunmen" - around 100 in total, some seeming military and some civilian, "rape and kill at least five women" as the Times put it. In the report itself, she describes seeing just two women raped and killed, three others raped but not killed (that she saw), and 3 more perhaps raped, and killed out of her view - she claims she just saw their severed heads. That's for a total of 8 victims spoken of. 

"Yura Karol, a 22-year-old security consultant, said he was hiding in the same spot, and he can be seen in one of Sapir’s photos." He relates the same basic story in a more second-hand way.

Some the twisted details told by Sapir: First rape: "One man pulled her by the hair and made her bend over. Another penetrated her, Sapir said, and every time she flinched, he plunged a knife into her back." Then she claims to have seen "another woman “shredded into pieces.”  While one terrorist raped her, she said, another pulled out a box cutter and sliced off her breast," and started a game of toss-the-severed-breast just for fun, as the rape continued. She says they sliced her face, and then the victim "fell out of view" - likely executed, but she didn't claim to see. "Around the same time, she said, she saw three other women raped and terrorists carrying the severed heads of three more women," killed barbarically after what crimes she could only imagine. 

Just from Sapir's amazing spot, she claims to have witnessed 5+ rapes, 5+ murders, including 3+ beheaded women. As noted above, there are reportedly four rape survivors identified in the whole massacre. There are still zero rapes among the dead actually proven from all that physical evidence Israel had access to. And there are still zero beheaded women actually verified, identified, visually documented or credibly reported. She saw more than everyone else combined! She does suggest it was an unusual spot in this regard: “It was like an assembly point.” And if fighters and civilian rapists knew to congregate their crimes here for Sapir and Yura to see, that might go to show the whole thing was systematic, a planned part of Hamas' campaign of genocide.

In fact, the police have specified that they do NOT have the supporting evidence: According to Mondoweiss, Haaretz reported that “investigators were unable to identify the women who, according to the testimony of [Sapir] and other eyewitnesses, were raped and murdered.” Israeli Police Superintendent Adi Edry told the paper, “I have circumstantial evidence, but ultimately my duty is to find evidence that supports her testimony and to find the victims’ identity. At this stage I don’t have those specific corpses.” (Family of key case in New York Times October 7 sexual violence report renounces story, says reporters manipulated them – Mondoweiss)

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. 

Raz Cohen posted this image of him smiling as he hid from Hamas gunmen in a dry riverbed (on the left, with perhaps Gueta on the right - via Max B. on X - text added by me). This photo could be posed in any old "wadi" (as the Arabs call them), but it's likely enough he was at the rave and this is him hiding, just feeling in no immediate danger. But of course, he posted no image of himself frowning after witnessing a horrific rape, and of course, he posted and presumably took no recording of the event.

"Sapir," as the Times reports, "provided photographs of her hiding place and her wounds, and police officials have stood by her testimony and released a video of her, with her face blurred, recounting some of what she saw." But of course, she had no video of what she saw to prove one bit of the elaborate butchery she reports. She even specifies that she relied only on her eyes and/or imagination: "I looked at all this as if I was photographing them with my eyes, not forgetting any detail. I told myself: I should remember everything." And then she would need to insist that everyone believes those are actual memories, and maybe scream antisemitism if anyone doubts her.

Her co-witness "Yura Karol ... said he barely lifted his head to look at the road but he also described seeing a woman raped and killed." He too had no footage that's mentioned. He could lift his head, "barely," but his camera, not at all.

There are legitimate reasons these four people might all fail to record the events they actually witnessed. But mainly this comes down to the increased danger of being spotted with a raised camera. But the same issue applies to raising their eyes to see, and that was allegedly no problem. 

Furthermore, Cohen and perhaps Karol - as "security consultants" with some military training - might know better than most how to covertly film something without being spotted. Cohen was with the Maglan Unit 212 a reconnaissance unit of the IDF, which "specializes in operating behind enemy lines and deep in enemy territory using advanced technologies and weaponry." Maglan means Ibis, "a bird that knows how to adapt in every situation." Maglan - Wikipedia With the confidence of his training, he was able to take a smiling selfie and some other brief video, and to keep his head and eyes high enough to witness a Hamas rape. But he couldn't figure out how his camera lens could join his eyes there? 

They probably failed to record these rapes because there was nothing to film. They didn't even think to claim or stage anything, probably, because the whole idea emerged later. Either way, it was good enough for New York friggin' Times.

3C) 4 Witnesses with Changing Stories

If any of these people had witnessed these crimes, they would also likely mention them in their emergency calls, which would likely be recorded and might be released as proof. But so far, I'm not aware of any such evidence emerging. Did they fail to report these crimes as well as failing to document them? 

They might mention the crimes in the media interviews, and of course they have. But there are troubling discrepancies. 

The Gray Zone noted how, on Nov. 8th, an unnamed woman told Haaretz she saw just one rape: victim bent over, killed by a shot to the head, and then mutilated. Her unnamed friend “didn’t see the rape,” but heard it and had the visuals described. (https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/) This is almost certain to be "Sapir" and Yura Karol. BBC, Dec. 5, were shown video of an interview with "witness S" who still describes just one rape victim: "S mimes the attackers picking up and passing the victim from one to another. ... the men cut off parts of the victim's body during the assault. "They sliced her breast and threw it on the street," she says. "They were playing with it." Then "The victim was passed to another man in uniform, she continues. "He penetrated her, and shot her in the head before he finished. He didn't even pick up his pants; he shoots and ejaculates." A few weeks later to the Times, Sapir seems to add a second rape-murder, moving the mastectomy but not the execution to this second victim, and seems to add 3 more rapes, 3 severed heads, more stabbing, and no mention of shooting. Or maybe she just didn't mention those details at first. 

And as the Gray Zone noted, Yura (or the similar co-witness of "S") said in November that he "didn't see the rape" but only heard it. Dy late December he “described seeing a woman raped and killed.” 

Raz Cohen's first media interviews - like his Instagram photo - fail to reflect his most powerful claims. A compilation video by My Lord Bebo on X remains useful; in 4 interviews published October 9 - at least the shared portions - he recalls hiding under the stage and then in the wadi, and seeing people killed including with knives, prior to the army showing up and killing no one that he mentions. (but in one interview, he seem abnormally concerned with or distracted by a helicopter flying nearby.) Nothing related to rape is mentioned. Then on the 10th Cohen gave an interview to PBS News Hour where he suddenly mentions the rape-murder in detail, and it was a main feature of all later interviews. 

The clear impression is he decided or was compelled to add this detail for some reason. 

The Gray Zone's "Screams Without Proof" article took this line, only to learn that it did come up on the first day - but just once, and apparently mentioned off-camera, as related by the reporter, Ariel Oseran. Author Max Blumenthal on X issued an update after seeing the fuller broadcast (from i24) including Oseran's attached "second-hand summary of comments Cohen supplied to him after bolting the interview for "emotional support" at Barzalai Hospital in Ashkelon. According to Oseran, while hiding from infiltrators from Gaza, Cohen claimed to have listened to the sounds of Palestinian infiltrators "raping Israeli women, dead, alive, some injured. He told me he could hear this. ... he chose not to look, but he could hear them laughing constantly."

Some emergency emotional support could help one to go ahead with reporting the actual truth, or to cope with speaking a terrible lie that's meant to justify acts of genocide. He would say the experience of hearing multiple rapes and at least one rape-murder and some necrophilia had kept him from speaking of it until he had some "emotional support," and kept him from saying it on camera until the next day. But by then, he was clear that he visually SAW just the ONE rape-murder he mentions from then on. 

In fact, in a Kan interview, Dec. 18, he says "I couldn't hear her, I think they blocked her mouth." (העד הגלוי הראשון למעשי האונס) But at first he could ONLY hear her, and later to the Times, he painfully recalled her "screams without words." 

Note how Raz Cohen originally had multiple-rape and necrophilia claims ("Israeli women, dead, alive, some injured"), then by October 10th he didn't. He wasn't at Sapir's mythical "assembly point." Sapir and Yura Karol were there, and so from November on, THEY had the multiple-rape and necrophilia claims. It's almost as if the narrative managers transfer atrocity claim files between their fake "security consultant" witnesses whenever they decide to re-organize them. 

Note also: Yura said in November that he "didn't see the rape," but then by late December he decided that he DID see it. Like Raz, he's a "security consultant." Two of two described "security consultant" witnesses wound up switching from hearing the rape(s) to actually seeing them. It's almost as if the narrative managers had their fake "security consultant" witnesses revise their stories to fit Israel's propaganda (or "hasbara") needs: "give us the kind of story after which "Gaza [will] not continue to be [on] the map." It needs to be terrible, and you need to have SEEN it, leaving no doubts."

3D) Some Other Witnesses to Rapes at the Rave

At least two witnesses described to the Times women at the Nova rave seemingly raped and murdered around the site, One was in a rawhide vest, bound and bent over, and another whose "her vagina area appeared to have been sliced open, “as if someone tore her apart.” Both victims were only seen after the fact, if they were seen at all. Again, neither witness - a ZAKA rescuer, and an event organizer - was able to document it. 

There have been others that didn't make it into this report. For example:

On December 3 - as these other stories were coming out louder and thicker, there was at least one other reported by the New York Post which the Times' later report failed to follow-up on - perhaps due to credibility issues, even relative to the cases above, this 39-year-old alleged ravegoer didn't get a long interview in an Israeli cafe

https://nypost.com/2023/12/03/news/horrific-new-stories-of-hamas-rapes-in-israel-surface-including-attack-on-woman-with-face-of-an-angel-who-screamed-to-be-killed/

Yoni Saadon, a 39-year-old father of four and foundry shift manager, spoke to the UK’s Sunday Times, about witnessing two women killed, one after rape and the other for resisting rape.  

first one witnessed "after pulling over him the body of a slain woman who had also been shot in the head — and smearing her blood on himself so it looked like he, too, was dead." 

“I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or 10 of the fighters beating and raping her,” ... “When they finished, they were laughing, and the last one shot her in the head,” he said. “I will never forget her face,” he said. “Every night I wake to it and apologize to her, saying, ‘I’m sorry.’"

"Saadon said he eventually joined others who had fled the site and hid in trees and bushes. That’s when he witnessed two more Hamas gunmen attack another young woman who was resisting being stripped, he said." He wasn't hiding under anyone this time, but was still able to see this without being seen. 

“They threw her to the ground, and one of the terrorists took a shovel and beheaded her,” Saadon told the UK outlet. “And her head rolled along the ground. I see that head, too,” when he wakes up at night, driven almost to madness by these terrible and ever-so-real memories.

Not many witnesses mention decapitation along with rape as something they saw. So is this the same man? BBC, December 5: "One man we spoke to from the festival site said he heard the "noises and screams of people being murdered, raped, decapitated". To our question about how he could be sure - without seeing it - that the screams he heard indicated sexual assault rather than other kinds of violence, he said he believed while listening at the time that it could only have been rape." Is that Mr. Saadon? Did he switch from hearing to seeing, like Cohen and Karol did? Or perhaps the reverse? If he's a "security consultant" like them, it isn't mentioned, but someone might want to check into that.

Again, no camera - Saadon's or any of those he was hiding with in the second spot - was allowed to see the attempted rape or the shovel beheading he describes. A thing like that can only appear in words and, according to those words, in memories - a notoriously malleable medium. - Or - Hamas' most "unspeakable" crimes, somehow can only be spoken, never documented or proven. If you accept that premise, then this Times report and this Gaza genocide might be for you. And here are some more good reasons...

4) A Soldier/Paramedic: Two Teenage Sisters Raped

Again, rescuers claim they saw things. The Times report says "A paramedic in an Israeli commando unit said that he had found the bodies of two teenage girls in a room in Be’eri. One was lying on her side, he said, boxer shorts ripped, bruises by her groin. The other was sprawled on the floor face down, he said, pajama pants pulled to her knees, bottom exposed, semen smeared on her back.” In a surprise move, "Because his job was to look for survivors, he said, he kept moving and did not document the scene."

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." 

Furthermore, Max notes: "G" "was previously interviewed by the right-wing Republic TV of India," in a shared video clip. The "Chief sergeant, first class" speaks with his back turned. Max hears "a distinctive Brooklyn accent," FWIW, and it sounds like the voice heard on CNN. He describes the scene in question and also relates finding a dead baby stabbed all over, tossed into the garbage can. But only one baby was clearly reported among the dead on October 7, as Max noted: "Mila Cohen, who was accidentally shot, not stabbed, and who was not found in any garbage can. Once again, the NY Times failed to vet its sources and wound up turning to a proven fabulist for evidence." As we'll see, it seems very unlikely that this guy ever witnessed these two girls either. 

Max Blumenthal aptly concluded that G's claims probably refer to the only two teenage sisters reported as killed in Be'eri, and those were aged 13 and 16 like the neighbors said. So it can hardly be doubted this refers to Yahel and Noiya Sharabi, who were reportedly killed alongside their mother Lianne, while their father and an uncle were kidnapped alive to Gaza. (at right: Yahel, 13 - Lianne, 48 - and Noiya, 16 - as they were in life) 

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?"

Several images of the home are shown in the Sun report, displaying no sign of fire or shelling, suggesting the violence here was all by Hamas, not the IDF. "A hallway where a huge blackened smear of blood appears to be the spot where Lianne died. And upstairs, another bloodstain tells its horror story in a room where Yahel slept — heavily staining the carpet close to a pair of pink pyjamas and vanity case." The family dog was killed, just off frame of the living room photograph. Some blood was shed at least in the pantry, and some bloody blue fabric is seen in the room "where Yahel was slain." The single body is removed by the time of this photo, and the reported bloodstain is left off-frame.

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." 

In a highly unusual development, Ms. Wessely recorded what she saw in some short videos and then published them. A provided video screenshot relates the familiar scene in a view I had never seen (at right). "When she posted the video of the woman in the black dress on her Instagram story, she was deluged with messages" and it went viral. For example, Daniel Amram, a popular private news blogger in Israel, tweeted the video to Greta Thunberg, claiming that the victim “was raped and burned alive.” (but he thinks it's "this family who just found her sister")  

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.  

See also: Max Blumenthal on X: "The Times must issue a retraction and punish @Gettleman and his colleagues if it can not discredit the IG comment below by Miral Alter (apparent sister of Gal Abdush) At The Grayzone, I demonstrated months ago that Abdush had been killed by an explosion on October 7, and was not…" / X (twitter.com)

On Rising via Max Blumenthal on X

Watch: NY Times "investigation" of mass rape by Hamas falls apart | The Electronic Intifada

Family of key case in New York Times October 7 sexual violence report renounces story, says reporters manipulated them – Mondoweiss

Conclusion: And that, folks, is how the New York friggin' Times crafted its big assist for the Netanyahu regime's ongoing genocide in Gaza.