Sexual violence, crimes that do not always have condemnation

Close to the 300th anniversary of the Gaza war, the shocking images of the enormous destruction of the Strip, the exodus of its more than two million inhabitants to less dangerous areas are accumulating when the Israeli forces undertake successive operations to capture or eliminate Hamas leaders or fighters, systematically classified as terrorists by Israel, while being praised as victims or heroes in the media more inclined to the Palestinian cause.

The current war in Gaza begins on October 7, when Hamas launches its most spectacular commando operation, attacking an outdoor music festival and two kibbutzim. In purely statistical terms, the offensive resulted in 1,200 dead, more than 3,000 wounded and 250 citizens taken hostage by the attackers on their return to Gaza.

Israel launches from the next day the retaliatory operation planned by the mastermind of this, Yahya Sinwar, with the consent of its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and obviously blessed by the Iranian regime, mentor of any anti-Israel organization or militia that subscribes to the desire of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhola Khomeini, to make the State of Israel disappear. The objectives declared by the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the beginning of the counterattack are the liberation of the hostages and the total annihilation of Hamas. Almost 300 days later, neither of these objectives has been fully achieved, while the prolongation of the war has resulted in the reduction to rubble of at least 60% of the buildings, facilities and infrastructures in Gaza, but above all, in the creation of a clearly unfavourable narrative for Israel, which has seen its soft power greatly weakened, that is, the world prestige gained for its undeniable advances in all fields of science and technology, within a democratic state of law. The substantial numbers of Palestinian victims published daily by the Hamas authorities governing Gaza - 38,000 dead and 88,000 injured to date - decisively contribute to branding the Israeli retaliation as grossly disproportionate.   

Going back to October 7, the origin of the outbreak of this war, there were undoubtedly crimes that seem to have disappeared from the parties, chronicles and reports dealing with this conflict: those committed against Israeli women or women of other nationalities, all of them united under the common denominator of being Jewish. 

We had the opportunity to talk about this with Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a well-known expert in family law, a feminist critic of Jewish law and international women's rights. This founder of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of the Status of Women at Bar-Ilan University, stopped by Madrid, to remember “the sexual crimes committed by Hamas.” Crimes that have no condemnation, at least from the multiple international organizations that should pursue them and that keep a strident silence. 

Without raising the tone, but with extraordinary firmness, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari is proceeding with a thorough collection of data and evidence of the sexual crimes committed by Hamas. Without elaborating on the most stark and gloomy aspects, he says that he already has enough evidence to conclude that this sexual violence was a fundamental part of the attack strategy: mutilated bodies, point-blank shots to the female genital organs, in addition to the bodies of many women found in unequivocal positions of having suffered a sexual assault before having their throats cut or beheaded, make up the arsenal of evidence of such crimes. His answer to the question of why, could be common to that of so many similar episodes in all wars: "Women were a fundamental target because they represent the creation of life, which for Hamas translates into new enemy citizens in the future."   

The researcher fears that the kidnapped women who are still in the hands of Hamas will also be subjected to constant sexual assault during their captivity, a suffering that their relatives consider unbearable and that will mark their lives forever. 

When rights that are already recognized and more than consolidated are claimed in this West, undoubtedly so that not a few beach bars and supposed feminist observatories remain standing, the silence of international organizations that do not raise their voice against these aggressions, true war crimes, is indeed very striking. 

In one of his best phrases, Comrade Stalin said that "a crime is a tragedy, but a million murders are just a statistic." People like Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari are not willing that sexual crimes as a weapon of war should not remain without condemnation, starting with that of public opinion.