Secretary of State Antony Blinken has criticized the United Nations and other leaders for being too slow to condemn rape and other sexual assaults by Hamas terrorists — which he says are “beyond anything I have ever seen.”
“The brutality that we saw on October 7 is almost indescribable or beyond our ability to digest,” Blinken said in an interview Sunday with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
“And we’ve talked about them before, but the sexual violence that we saw on October 7 was beyond anything I’ve ever seen, either.”
The failure to condemn, and in some cases the failure to believe, reports of sexual violence is something that “these organizations, these countries have to ask themselves.”
Blinken was asked if he thought the stalled UN recognition was due to antisemitism.
“I don’t know why countries, leaders, international organizations are so slow to focus on this, to bring it to the public’s attention,” Blinken replied. “I’m glad it finally happened.”
Blinken said the rampant sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas was “beyond anything I’ve ever seen.” CNN
Reports of widespread rape in Israel during the Hamas offensive were first reported last month, when Physicians for Human Rights Israel published its initial assessment.
“What we know for sure is that it’s more than one case and it’s widespread, because this happened in more than one location and more than a few times,” said Hadas Ziv, the group’s director of policy and ethics.
A combat medic also told the Associated Press how he came across at least half a dozen bodies of women and men with possible signs of sexual assault.
The body was bleeding profusely around the groin, he said, with limbs twisted at odd angles.
Israeli police say they are currently combing through about 60,000 videos seized from terrorist body cameras, from social media and from security cameras, as well as 1,000 pieces of evidence to bring the perpetrators to justice.
But it is difficult to find rape survivors, as many have been killed afterwards.
At first, some lawmakers questioned the report, and Rep. Democrat Pramila Jayapal even asked for “balanced” criticism when asked about rape.
But House Democrats now plan to introduce a resolution condemning Hamas’ use of Israeli women as a weapon of war.
Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it had requested access to Israel and the Palestinian territories to allow it to gather information about the October 7 events, but a spokesman said Israel had not responded to the request.
The Jewish state has previously said the UN has inherent biases and will not cooperate with the body.
Instead, Israeli officials said they would consider all options for an independent international group to investigate.
With Postal wire.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
