Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed women’s rights organizations for their silence in the atrocities Hamas committed against women.
During a press conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Netanyahu called out human rights and women’s rights organizations for remaining silent even as reports of the horrifying acts of violence Hamas terrorists inflicted upon Israeli women have been released, according to The Times of Israel.
“I say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations, you’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation. Where the hell are you?” Netanyahu asked.
'Where the hell are you?'
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Israel's PM Netanyahu delivers a speech following a war cabinet meeting, addressing the silence from women's rights and human rights organizations following the sexual violence used by #Hamas on #October7 pic.twitter.com/9g0hK14LkK
Netanyahu said he met with released hostages and the families of those who are still being held captive by Hamas.
“I heard heartbreaking stories of abuse,” Netanyahu said. “I heard, as you have heard, about sexual abuse and unprecedented cases of cruel rape.”
Since Hamas launched an attack on Israel on Oct. 7, leaving more than 1,400 people dead and more than 240 people taken as hostages, eyewitnesses and Israeli officials have painted a picture of the violence and atrocities that occurred that day.
While Hamas claims the group uses the rape or assault of women as a weapon of war, experts have claimed that Hamas had a premeditated plan “to use sexual violence as a weapon of war.”
“They cut limbs and genitals, they raped, they abused corpses,” Israeli Police Chief Kobi Shabtai told The Washington Post. “There were sadistic sexual acts.”
Shari, who works as a morgue worker on a military base, told the Daily Mail there was “evidence of mass rape ” described as being “so brutal that they broke their victims’ pelvis – women, grandmothers, children.”
A report from The Times detailed an eyewitness account from Yoni Saadon who had been attending the Supernova music festival near the Israel border when Hamas terrorists opened fire and committed violent atrocities.
Saadon described seeing a woman “with the face of an angel” who was being beaten and raped by “eight or 10” Hamas fighters.
“She was screaming, ‘Stop it- already I’m going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!’ When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head.”
President Joe Biden similarly addressed the atrocities committed by Hamas against women.
“Reports of women raped – repeatedly raped – and their bodies being mutilated while still alive – of women corpses being desecrated, Hamas terrorists inflicting as much pain and suffering on women and girls as possible and then murdering them,” Biden said. “It is appalling.”
Biden added the world can’t turn a blind eye to “what’s going on.”
“It’s on all of us – government, international organizations, civil society and businesses – to forcefully condemn the sexual violence of Hamas terrorists without equivocation,” Biden said. “Without equivocation, without exception.”