Israeli expert calls for justice for both Israeli, Palestinian victims of sexual violence – National

An Israeli expert leading a civilian commission on sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas militants and the Israeli army is calling on international agencies to recognize the “new crimes against humanity,” which include violence against families.

Cochav Elkayam-Levy said the world must take action against the destruction of families as a clear, visible weapon of conflict, aimed at persecuting your relatives. He suggests that the crime be called “kinocide.”

In the interview, he also said that Canadians can demand that Hamas be brought to court while demanding accountability when Israeli soldiers commit sexual violence against Palestinians, without drawing a false parallel.

“We have to see Canadian leadership in dealing with the lack of clarity in the conduct of international institutions,” Elkayam-Levy said in an interview during a visit to Ottawa last month.

Elkayam-Levy is a professor of international law at the Hebrew University who chairs the Israel Public Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes Against Women and Children.

That non-governmental organization began documenting patterns of sexual violence by Hamas and its affiliates during the 2023 offensive and hostage taking from the Gaza Strip.

The aim was not to come up with statistics on assaults, but instead to write organized material about how women are raped, tortured and mutilated. The idea was to gain insight that could help victims and their descendants deal with intergenerational trauma, and create a repository for researchers and prosecutors to use for possible investigations.

Elkayam-Levy’s team reviewed hours of footage showing “the most extreme forms of violence” from closed-circuit cameras and footage from the soldiers themselves.

They began to recognize six forms of violence involving the situations of more than 140 families.

This includes using victims’ social networks to spread the word about the victim to their friends and family, including hostages and those killed. One involved killing parents in front of their children or vice versa, and the other involved the destruction of family homes.

“We started to understand that there is something here, a different kind of violence,” he said. “The abuse of family relationships is to intensify the injury, to intensify the suffering.”

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Elkayam-Levy said she coined the term with the help of experts, including Canadians like former attorney general Irwin Cotler. The laws supporting the International Criminal Court mention families only in procedural situations, but not as a cause of war crimes, he noted.

“It is a crime without a name,” he said, arguing that it interferes with the healing of the victims.

He said that experts in past conflicts agreed with him, and said that the massacre should be a reason for the world to understand and seek justice for atrocities in various continents, such as how the Islamic State terrorists targeted Yazidi families from 2014 to 2017.

“Justice begins with this respect; Treatment starts with respect,” he said.

Elkayam-Levy noted that “gender-based violence” existed for centuries before the United Nations officially recognized the term in 1992.

He also aims to “silence many international organizations, and the clear lack of ethics,” in publicizing gender-based violence around the world.

Notably, UN Women did not condemn Hamas’ sexual violence until nearly two months after the attack, a move Elkayam-Levy said sets a bad example of upholding international standards.

“They have encouraged the denial of sexual violence,” he said, adding that the constant demand for physical evidence is rampant on social media “in a very unpleasant way.”

Israeli police said forensic evidence was not preserved in the chaos of the attacks, and people believed to be victims of sexual assault were often killed and quickly buried.

The acts of sexual violence were not part of the 43-minute video that the Israeli Foreign Ministry showed to journalists, including the Canadian Press, which was obtained from security footage and videos recorded by the army during its October 2023 raid.

In March, a UN envoy said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas had committed rape and “sexual abuse” during the attack, “including rape and gang rape,” despite the group’s denials.

That same month, freed hostage Amit Soussana went public about his captors groping him and forcing him into a “sexual act” that he asked not to be revealed.

As part of its pro-women foreign policy, Canada funds programs abroad to prevent sexual violence and support victims. However, the Conservatives criticized the Liberals for not condemning Hamas sexual violence until five months after the attack.

In March, Ottawa allegedly pledged $1 million to groups supporting victims of Hamas sexual violence in Israel and $1 million to Palestinian women facing “sexual and gender-based violence” from unspecified perpetrators.

Global Affairs did not say whether that referred to domestic abuse or sexual violence by Israeli officials, receiving a rebuke from Israel’s top diplomat.

Human rights groups have long accused Israeli officials of sexually abusing Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank. In July, that concern increased when Israeli forces were accused of filming the rape of a Palestinian prisoner in the Gaza Strip. Right-wing Israeli cabinet ministers have expressed support for the mobs trying to free the soldiers who are being investigated.

Elkayam-Levy said Canadians can call out the patterns of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas in Israel, and demand that the Israeli government investigate and prosecute its soldiers who commit acts of sexual violence against Palestinians.

“The fact that (Western leaders) are trying to make the right political decision, instead of the right moral decision, creates confusion, creates moral ambiguity – instead of making space for all the victims to be heard about what they have endured,” he said.

For him, there are “false parallels” made between individual cases of sexual abuse of soldiers who must be held accountable, and a group that uses patterns of sexual violence as a weapon of conflict.

Elkayam-Levy said that people should respect the principles of international law.

He knows that many have argued that Israel’s military campaign has violated international law and undermined programs aimed at upholding human rights.

Elkayam-Levy has been critical of the Israeli government, arguing before the controversy that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking anti-democratic reforms in the country’s courts.

He criticized his war cabinet for lacking women and highlighted several media reports that female soldiers had discovered that Hamas was planning a major attack but would be repulsed by male leaders.

He said the world must condemn violence against families and try to prosecute those who commit crimes. Besides, he feared that foreign wars would adopt his cruel tactics.

Otherwise, “we will see an international system that will not last long,” he said.