Editor’s note: This story contains graphic and disturbing accounts of sexual violence. It was originally published on January 4, 2024 and updated on April 10, 2024, with additional information regarding the account of an attack on a kibbutz.
Five men got out of the van and captured a woman, ripping off her clothes as they formed a circle around her. One of them raped and killed her with a knife. Then he raped her again, said Raz Cohen, a survivor of the deadly Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7.
Cohen had gone to the Nova music festival, in Israel’s southern desert, to be with his girlfriend of two months, Maya. She tried to flee with another friend and was killed, he said. Cohen saw another young woman shot in the head as he ran to hide in a bush – the place where he witnessed the rape, he told CNN.
Israeli police document cases of rape and sexual violence committed when Hamas fighters broke into Israel from Gaza, attacking the music festival and kibbutz communities near the border. Around 1,200 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage in the attacks, which drew worldwide condemnation and led to a massive Israeli military response. Israel’s subsequent war against Hamas in Gaza cost more than 22,000 Palestinian lives, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.
But the United Nations and human rights organizations have been slow to denounce reports of rape and mutilation against Israelis – mainly girls and women, but also men. And Hamas has denied that its fighters committed sexual violence during the coordinated attacks.
The United Nations agency UN Women issued a statement in December condemning the attacks and saying it was “alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during these attacks.”
“It’s a fact,” Cohen said. “That’s what happened.”
Cohen said a white van stopped about 30 yards from his hiding place and five men in plain clothes got out.
“They grabbed a girl and they started taking off her clothes,” he said. “After they took off her clothes, one of them started to rape her. It was about 40 seconds. After raping her, he takes a knife and kills her, murdering her. After that, he continued to rape the corpse.
The other men around the victim did not appear angry, Cohen said.
“They always laugh. I think it was for fun. They murdered a lot of people for fun. »
Along with the sounds of apparent mirth, Cohen previously told the New York Times that he could remember the terror of the woman he saw killed. “I still remember her voice, her wordless cries,” he said.
After the rape, Cohen told CNN he saw the group attack another woman and a man. He said they were killed with knives and axes.
CNN cannot independently verify Cohen’s account. A CNN investigation and analysis of videos and testimonies from the Nova festival show how the rave turned into carnage.
Cohen, 24, said he ran across a desert field to escape the mass arrival of attackers. He described feeling like he was on a shooting range – with nowhere to hide and bullets coming from left, right and behind.
“I ran out into the open field and was really close to a girl,” he said. “When I passed her…I heard she fell to the ground. I look back…and saw she was shot in the head…I looked at the girl but I can’t help her so I keep running away until I get to the bush.
Cohen had to wait nine hours in the bush for help to arrive, he said.
In November, Israel Police Commissioner Dudi Katz said officers had already collected more than 1,000 statements and more than 60,000 video clips related to the attacks, including several testimonies from people who said they had seen women raped. .
He said investigators did not have direct testimony and it was unclear whether any rape victims survived.
Rami Shmuel, an organizer of the music festival Cohen attended, previously said he saw female victims without clothes as he fled, and had no doubt what happened.
“Their legs were spread and some of them were massacred,” he told CNN.
A combat paramedic who did not want his name published also told CNN in November that he had seen the bodies of two teenage girls on a kibbutz and that there was no doubt that at least one of them was between them had been raped.
“His pants are down to his knees and there is a gunshot wound to the back of his neck, near his head,” he said. “There is a pool of blood around his head and remnants of semen on his lower back.”
In response to subsequent reports raising questions about the account – particularly the location, which he identified as Kibbutz Be’eri – the paramedic directed his questions to the IDF. A spokesperson pointed to a United Nations report that found reason to believe accounts of rape and gang rape during the October 7 attacks, and added: “In the case in question, the combat paramedic shared his personal experience when he arrived on the scene. of the massacre. Given the privacy of the victims and their families, it is not possible to provide further information on this case.
In a statement to CNN, the kibbutz said: “We have no further information. It is important to note that we do not dispute that the sexual violence was part of the Hamas plan and was carried out in other locations, according to testimony, but not on the said girls, who were nonetheless brutally murdered.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, a human rights law expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, formed a civilian commission with his colleagues to document evidence of the attacks. She was determined that these atrocities would not be overlooked or forgotten, particularly because the victims were unable to speak for themselves, she said.
“We will never know everything that happened to them,” Elkayam-Levy told CNN in November. “We know that most women who are raped and sexually assaulted have also been murdered. »
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