Israeli occupation forces are committing the actual rapes of Palestinians in Gaza

Lawyer behind 'Hamas rape' claims exposed as fraud
Employees of Israeli ministries claim that Cochav Elkayam-Levy has spread fake news and sought to make millions off her false claims about Hamas carrying out mass rapes on 7 October


Israeli officials have "dissociated themselves" from a lawyer who has played a vital role in promoting false claims that Hamas carried out systematic rape and sexual abuse on 7 October, Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 24 March.

The Israeli newspaper reported claims by Israeli ministry officials that lawyer Cochav Elkayam-Levy had produced inaccurate research, spread false stories about Hamas atrocities, and sought to collect millions of dollars in donations for a so-called ‘civic commission’ of which she is the only member.

Elkayam-Levy, who is the head of the Deborah Institute and a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University, was among the first to spread false claims that Hamas had carried out systematic rape during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

As The Grayzone detailed, Elkayam-Levy presented images of female Kurdish fighters killed in Syria while claiming they were Jewish Israeli women who had been killed and raped by Hamas fighters at the Nova Music Festival on 7 October.

The Grayzone further noted that Elkayam-Levy gained significant public attention in December after being interviewed by CNN's Jake Tapper and meeting with members of the White House National Security Council and Assistant to the President and Director of the Gender Policy Council Jennifer Klein in Washington.

"People disassociated themselves from her because her research is inaccurate," explained an official in one of the government offices speaking with Yedioth Ahronoth. "After all, the whole story is that they [Palestinians] want to accuse us of spreading fake news, and her methodology was neither good nor accurate."

Elkayam-Levy spread the story in the international press "about the pregnant woman who had her stomach cut open – a story that was proven to be untrue," one official complained. "It's no joke. Little by little, professionals began to distance themselves from her because she is unreliable."

She also created a ‘civilian commission’ to investigate alleged Hamas atrocities. While the commission's name suggests it was a government-established body, it consisted only of Elkayam-Levy herself.

She then solicited millions of dollars in donations for the fake commission, claiming a budget of $8 million, including $1.5 million for administrative fees, was needed.

"Rahm Emanuel, the US ambassador to Japan, donated money to her. She took donations from many people and started asking for money for lectures," said the same official in the government office.

The critical report from Yeditoh Ahronoth comes just days after Elkayam-Levy was given the Israel Prize for her efforts to ‘raise awareness’ about alleged Hamas atrocities on 7 October.

The Israeli government has sought to use seemingly neutral third parties, including the volunteer rescue services, ZAKA and United Hatzalah, to spread propaganda regarding the events of 7 October.

These groups have fabricated wild tales of Hamas crimes in an effort to justify Israel's ongoing Genocide in Gaza.

https://thecradle.co/articles-id/24093

Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions
Hekmat AboukhaterMarch 20, 2024

A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission.

On the morning of March 7, as the US Capitol teemed with lobbyists securing earmarks ahead of appropriations week and activists decrying the Gaza genocide, one special interest group on the Hill stood out. In the corridors of the Rayburn building, a group of roughly 50 people prepared for a busy day of advocating for sanctions to be levied against their homeland.

They were the Anti-Syria lobby — and had I infiltrated their influence campaign.

Throughout the day, I watched as this group pushed US officials to accept their policy of starvation sanctions while cynically ignoring famished Palestinians in Gaza.

Among the lobbyists was Raed Saleh, the head of the Syrian White Helmets, who were to propagandize for regime change from behind humanitarian cover.

I attended a total of seven meetings with policy teams representing Senators Sherrod Brown, Maggie Hassan, Ben Cardin, Mark Kelly, Chris Van Hollen, John Fetterman, and Rick Scott. Throughout these sessions, I witnessed the anti-Syria Lobby attempt to bully and manipulate US officials into accepting their policy of starvation while cynically throwing starving Palestinians in Gaza under the bus.

At one moment, Raed Saleh, head of the Syrian White Helmets, which was founded by British intelligence, and funded by NATO states, painted Israeli air strikes against Syria in a positive light.

During a separate meeting, Wa’el Alzayat of the pro-Zionist Muslim outreach Emgage even demanded Senator Chris Van Hollen’s office support the approval of aid for Al Qaeda-linked militias in Syria.

“Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he insisted, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, [and] the Qataris are doing it.”

Purporting to be a voice for all Syrians, the anti-Syria lobby is spearheaded by the American Coalition for Syria (ACS), an umbrella organization representing opposition groups such as the Syrian American Council (SAC), the Syrian Forum, and a handful of others located in the US and Turkey.

Emgage, meanwhile, has been credited with getting the diaspora vote out for then-candidate Joe Biden in November 2020. The group has since fallen under criticism for acting as a de facto extension of the Biden White House and Democratic Party within the Muslim community. Emgage board member Farooq Mitha formally went to work for the Biden Pentagon in March 2021. On March 7, Alzayat aimed to weaponize Emgage’s influence against Democratic Senators who seemed uncomfortable with an escalating sanctions policy.

“I need a good story for my voters,” he explained to Senator Van Hollen’s team.

Throughout their sanctions campaign on the Hill, Alzayat and his cohorts operated like a miniature version of their Israel lobby allies, supplying roughly 50 volunteers with folders outlining talking points and the biographies of congressional representatives. The bios included a comprehensive list of the Senator or Representative’s recorded stance on Syria, such as their votes on the extension of the AUMF, the US military withdrawal from Syria, and previous sanctions packages targeting the country.



The handouts also laid out the lobby’s key legislative requests, which largely focused on securing development aid for militia-controlled territory in Syria — including that held by Al Qaeda’s local ally in the country — and ensuring passage of the ‘Assad Regime Anti Normalization Bill,’ which seeks to extend and expand sanctions targeting Damascus.

The Anti-Syria Lobby’s resemblance to their Israeli counterparts was no mistake. As Republican Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s chief of staff reassured us, “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


Syrian Civil War map|Syrian Civil War map (November 24, 2023) via Wikimedia Commons. Edited by author
More Starvation Sanctions

Ever since the US included Syria on its inaugural State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) list over Damascus’ support for the Palestinian resistance in 1979, Washington has gradually ratcheted up its financial war on the Syrian people. When decades of covert hybrid war erupted into an all-out proxy battle for the country’s territory—and survival—in 2011, the Anti-Syria Lobby officially began to take shape in Washington.


Syria is the unrivaled champion of the SST having never been delisted since the list’s inception in 1979.
In 2019, as Syria’s government emerged victorious from a multi-year battle with foreign-backed militias, Washington decided that while Damascus may have won the war, it would not win the peace. That January, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, a recipient of $1.8 million in AIPAC donations, introduced a sanctions package known as the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. Trump signed the bill as part of the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2020.


The US has a 45-year long tradition of sanctioning and isolating Syria economically in response to the country’s support of Palestinian resistance
The bill was unprecedented in both the way that it sanctioned broad sectors of the Syrian economy rather than only specific individuals, and in its deployment of so-called “secondary sanctions.” Secondary sanctions are imposed on parties that do business with a sanctioned entity even if those exchanges occur outside of the sanctioning entity’s jurisdiction.

Syria’s economy has been in free fall ever since the Caesar sanctions came into effect. Today, over 12 million Syrians representing more than half of the total population face food insecurity — a 51% increase from 2019. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the population lives under the poverty line. In 2019, the US dollar exchanged for 500 Syrian Pounds. Today, that number is more like 14,100— figures that represent a 2,720 percent devaluation.


The Syrian currency has devalued by 35,150% since the initial exchange rate of 40 SYP to 1 USD early 2011
Though H.R. 3202 appears to be focused on addressing UN aid divergence, and sanctioning previously unsanctioned entities like Asma Al Assad’s Syria Trust for Development and the Syrian Red Crescent, the real agenda of the bill is found deep within its 22-page text.

With the Caesar Sanctions set to expire by the end of 2024, H.R. 3202 seeks to quietly extend the aggressive financial measures until 2032.


The new bill’s main aim, which received very little attention, is the extension of the Caesar Act for 8 more years.
Having passed the House with overwhelming enthusiasm, H.R. 3202’s sister bill in the Senate can only pass with Democratic support. It was introduced by Israeli lobby-funded Republican Idaho Sen. James Risch last September and has since been co-sponsored by arch-neoconservative Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

Because S. 2935 can only pass with Democratic sponsorship, the Anti-Syria Lobby chose Sen. Ben Cardin, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and sponsor of the anti-Russia Magnitsky Act, as a crucial target for influence.

After meeting with Sherrod Brown’s office, Cardin’s Research and Legislative Assistant, Christopher Barr, hosted us in the Senator’s office. There, Raed Saleh of the White Helmets complained to Barr that USAID had slashed funding for his organization from $12 million to $3 million in recent years.

Next, it was time to discuss the true purpose of our visit: the passage of S. 2935.

Barr appeared uneasy from the outset and even expressed displeasure about the bill, complaining, “What passed the House was kind of a lot… the list of targets is vast.”

“Syria has already been so heavily sanctioned,” he added.

In response, Ghanem revealed a critical piece of information about the forces driving the dirty war on Syria, explaining that the impetus to expand and extend Caesar did not come from the Anti-Syria Lobby itself, but someone on Capitol Hill. Ghanem explained that the Hill source actually contacted the American Coalition for Syria to alert them to the fact that Caesar was set to expire, lamenting the fact that its sunset would amount to a loss of “US leverage over the Syrian regime.”

This line echoed the disturbing language of officials representing both the Biden and Trump administration alike. In 2019, neoconservative operative Dana Stroul declared that thanks to Caesar, Washington “holds a card on preventing reconstruction aid and technical expertise from going back,” to Syria. She lauded the fact that the U.S. could weaponize that “leverage” to keep Syria in “rubble.” Two years later, she would take up post as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under Biden.


Similarly, during an event at the neoconservative think tank, WINEP, the following year, the Special Envoy for Syria under Trump, Joel Rayburn, boasted that Caesar “lowers the bar” for evidence-based sanctions and allows for the broad targeting of any and all reconstruction projects in Syria.


“We don’t have to prove, for example, that a company that’s going in to do a reconstruction project in the Damascus region is dealing directly with the Assad regime,” Rayburn explained.

“We don’t have to have the evidence to prove that link,” he continued. “We just have to have the evidence that proves that a company or an individual is investing in […] the construction sector, the engineering sector, most of the aviation sector, the finance sector, energy sector, and so on.”

These public confessions did not stop the Anti-Syria Lobby from lying to the faces of congressional staffers throughout their March 7 campaign. During a meeting with Sen. Mark Kelly’s office, Ghanem falsely stated that the Caesar Sanctions were “targeted,” “not sectoral,” and “not [an] embargo, nothing punishing to civilians.”

Yet Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on Sanctions who visited Syria to document the effects of Washington’s unilateral sanctions regime on Syria, disagrees. In her 19-page report she clearly states that the sanctions are both illegal and inhumane in the way they affect the average Syrian.

Stabilization for me but not for thee

The second legislative ask came in the form of a well rehearsed speech by Ghanem, Zayat, and others, outlining what US tax dollars do and don’t fund in Syria. US aid packages are typically divided into two categories: “humanitarian funding” earmarked for goods such as food, water, and basic medical supplies or “stabilization” funding designed to secure a country as it transitions out of a period of turmoil. Unlike humanitarian assistance, stabilization funding may be used to support major investment and infrastructure projects such as roads, schools, healthcare facilities, and government services.

The US is the primary funder of humanitarian aid in both North East (NE) and NW Syria. However, while the US spends abundantly on stabilization needs in NE Syria, it spends $0 on the NW. That is because while Washington has long dreamed of establishing a secessionist Kurdish state in Syria’s Northeast, it neglected to send stabilization funds to the Northwest in order to avoid providing direct support to HTS, the Al Qaeda offshoot that governs the territory. The Anti-Syria Lobby was in Washington to change that.

Leading the push for US funds to Al Qaeda-affiliated elements in Northwest Syria was Wa’el Alzayat, a Syrian expat who proudly served in Iraq’s Green Zone under George Bush’s State Department and more recently published a shocking Washington Post oped begging US officials not to “lift sanctions to help Syria earthquake victims.” In the office of Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Alzayat voiced his frustration with US hesitation in the Northwest.

“Stop freaking out about the stuff going to terrorists,” he demanded, adding that “the Brits are doing it, the Turks are doing it, the Qataris are doing it.”




We’re missing out on a golden opportunity here to stabilize the region and leverage it for a political settlement,” he pleaded. In other words, Alzayat was openly lobbying US officials to strengthen Al Qaeda’s position in Syria in order to leverage the terrorist group against the country’s government.

Alzayat then weaponized his six-figure salary as head of Emgage to bully Van Hollen’s office into bowing before the anti-Syria Lobby, falsely claiming that his AIPAC-linked organization was “behind” the “Uncommitted” vote campaigns that damaged Biden’s primary performance in Michigan and Minnesota.




Towards the end of the meeting, the regime change lobbyist cynically invoked Israel’s slaughter of 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza to make the case for Al Qaeda in Syria one last time.

He argued that although “his community” is up in arms about the Biden administration’s funding and arming of the Gaza genocide, they would gladly flock back to the Democratic Party if the US funded roads and schools in Al Qaeda-controlled Idlib.

“I need a good story for my voters,” Alzayat explained, noting the Muslim community’s disapproval of the Biden Administration’s policy in Gaza and Yemen.

“You’re upset about all these disappointments,” he continued, play-acting a scenario in which he convinced a Muslim constituent to vote for Biden, again. “Guess what? They’re pumping 50 million into the school sector in the North [of Syria]!”




Overtures Towards Israel

The Israel-Palestine crisis loomed large throughout the ACS lobbying trip. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s secretary happened to be a hijabi Muslim woman sporting a pendant outlining the map of Palestine around her neck. As she greeted us, Farouk Belal, the head of the Syrian American Council, grumbled to Ghanem and me: “I hope she’s not with the resistance.”

When I asked him to clarify what he meant as we exited the office, he explained that people aligned with the Palestinian cause in Washington “don’t like us.”

Meanwhile, in Sen. Cardin’s office, Raed Salah of the White Helmets painted Israeli strikes on Syria which have crippled Syrian infrastructure, regularly damaged the country’s International civilian airports, and killed hundreds of Syrian Soldiers and civilians alike in a positive light:

“The situation in Syria is very complicated. Every day we hear of Israeli strikes on the dens, or the bases of the IRGC and its militias. Even we as Syrians did not know the extent to which the Iranians were entrenched in the country…”




For Saleh, the Israeli strikes do nothing but highlight the presence of the Syrian government-invited Iranian military presence in Syria.

Later that day, Ghanem attempted to capitalize on Sen. Fetterman’s fanatical pro-Israel antics by describing recent developments in Syria to a 20-something staffer. Referring to the Syrian government’s successful campaign to retake southern territory, he explained that the South is “where they lob missiles on Israel, by the way.” The aide dutifully transcribed this seemingly random piece of information in her notepad. Towards the end of the meeting, Fetterman was discussed as a potential Democratic sponsor of S. 2935 in the Senate.

In Senator Rick Scott’s office, a Cuban American Government Relations Associate for ACS, Alberto Hernandez, accidentally said the quiet part out loud. When Senator Scott’s ultra-Zionist National Security Advisor, Paul Bonicelli, asked if our group had connected with our “counterparts” in the Israeli lobby so that they could “vet” our proposals — revealing that Scott has apparently outsourced his brain to Zionists — Hernandez remarked: “Formally? No. Informally.”

He then turned to the rest of the ACS team in the meeting room and said: “You didn’t hear me say that.”

That admission prompted Bonicelli to suggest that ACS directly coordinate with groups such as the Aramaic Church in Israel, which has supported regime change efforts in Damascus despite overwhelming Christian support of the government within Syria itself.

As the meeting wound to a close, Bonicelli informed us that he agreed with ACS on the necessity to oppose Iran and Russia.

“If Obama had done the right thing in 2012, we wouldn’t be here,” he lamented, adding: “the Israelis want you guys in charge.”


At one point during the meeting in Rick Scott’s Office, Alberto Hernandez, and Sarah Salas, a Cuban American legislative aide, expressed full agreement with US use of unilateral sanctions as means to “push” governments that “we don’t like.”
Starving Syrians Without A Mandate

Though several ACS volunteers shared painful personal encounters with the Syrian government throughout the day, many were simply too far removed from Syria to truly represent the voice of Syrian people, especially the 12 million plus civilians currently living in Syrian government-controlled territory.

One 24-year-old woman who did not speak Arabic and has not been to Syria since 2003 described the Syrian Army’s 2016 liberation of Aleppo from Al Qaeda-linked militants as “the fall of Aleppo.”

Other Syrians like myself experienced the terror of the West’s proxy war in Syria firsthand. In 2012, my aunt and cousins watched in horror as the Turkish-backed Liwa’ Al Tawhid, an umbrella group of takfiri jihadist militias, arrived on their street in the Seryan El Jdideh neighborhood of Aleppo. The militants proceeded to execute a local pick-up truck driver and steal his vehicle, leaving his bleeding corpse on the street. Shahba, where my family lived up until 2015, was located just a stone’s throw away from these sectarian death squads during our final months there.

The Syrian dirty war was bloody and gruesome, yet the picture that ACS paints is entirely one-sided. Unfortunately, while organizations like ACS have flocked to the Beltway swamp throughout the last 13 years, there are no Syrians present in Washington DC to counter them. While these groups claim to speak on behalf of the Syrian people, those of us who have lived and still live in areas controlled by Syrian government — regardless of our political affiliations—are rendered voiceless in the very center of power where our perspective should matter most. Even Syria’s embassy has been shuttered since 2014, while Syrian diplomats at the UN in New York are heavily monitored and restricted from traveling beyond the NYC metro area.

As I witnessed on Capitol Hill, there are few obstacles to the anti-Syria lobby’s ruthless push to prevent the majority of Syrians from emerging from the ruins of war.

https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/20/anti-syria-lobbys-capitol-hill-sanctions/

Inside the anti-Syria lobby’s Capitol Hill push for more starvation sanctions

A week from the 13th anniversary of the US-backed Syrian dirty war, the American Coalition for Syria held its annual day of advocacy in Washington DC. I went undercover into meetings with Senate policy advisors and witnessed the lobby’s cynical campaign to starve Syria into submission.

BY HEKMAT ABOUKHATER

Continue reading TheGrayzone.com

Sweden closing Nordsteam investigation a shocking coverup, investigator tells Grayzone

Watch the Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal interview Swedish engineer Erik Andersson, who led the first independent investigation to the site of the Nordstream pipelines blast sites, on the Swedish government’s sudden closing of the investigation into the terror attack on the eve of joining NATO.

Andersson also addresses US meddling in Swedish politics, and the potential consequences of Stockholm surrendering its traditional neutrality to the anti-Russian alliance.

Full interview here.

“Our goal is to stop the genocide”: The Grayzone interviews Houthi spokesman
Max BlumenthalJanuary 25, 2024

Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti, senior political officer and spokesman for Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, explains the objectives behind his movement’s naval blockade of the Red Sea in this interview with The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal. Al-Bukhaiti also responds to military threats from the Biden administration and allegations that Ansarallah is controlled by Iran’s IRGC.

Translation by Hekmat Aboukhater



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k3hAkr1FNc

Screams without proof: questions for NYT about shoddy ‘Hamas mass rape’ report
Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté
January 10, 2024

After dismantling a New York Times front page feature alleging “a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7” by Hamas, The Grayzone is demanding answers of the paper for its journalistic malpractice.

The following was submitted to New York Times editors and lead author, Jeffrey Gettleman.

The Grayzone has identified serious issues with the credibility of key sources quoted in the New York Times’ December 28 story, “Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on October 7.” Authored by Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella, the article purports to prove “a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7” than even Israeli authorities have been willing to allege . However, the Times report is marred by sensationalism, wild leaps of logic, and an absence of concrete evidence to support its sweeping conclusion.

The Times has come under fire from family members of Gal Abdush, the so-called “girl in the black dress” who features as Exhibit A in Gettleman and company’s attempt to demonstrate a pattern of rape by Hamas on October 7. Not only have Abdush’s sister and brother-in-law each denied that she was raped, the former has accused the Times of manipulating her family into participating by misleading them about their editorial angle. Though the family’s comments have sparked a major uproar on social media, the Times has yet to address the serious breach of journalistic integrity that its staff is accused of committing.


The Israeli police have also issued a statement since the publication of the Times’ article asserting that they themselves are unable to locate eyewitnesses of rape on October 7, or to connect the testimonies published by outlets like the Times with anything remotely resembling evidence.

We call on the New York Times to publicly address the comments by the Abdush family accusing Times reporters of misleading them and lying about the circumstances of her death. The Times must also address the statement issued by Israel’s police subsequent to the article’s publication and explain why Gettleman and his co-authors apparently omitted it.

Further, we demand a response to our thoroughly sourced debunking of testimony by key witnesses quoted in the story, as well as the documented record of discredited claims and ethically dubious activity by those same witnesses.

We have provided several questions for your consideration. If you are unable to furnish responses which satisfactorily address the issues we have raised about the credibility of your article, we believe it must be retracted in full.


Family of “the girl in the black dress” accuses NYT of having “invented” rape claim

You write, “Based largely on the video evidence — which was verified by The New York Times — Israeli police officials said they believed that [Gal] Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks.”

However, the sister of Gal Abdush, Miral Alter, stated in a January 2 Instagram comment that “she was not raped… There was no proof that there was rape, it was only a video.” She also pointed out that the timeline between Gal’s last message to the family and the time of her reported murder made it impossible for a rape to occur: “How in 4 minutes [were] they also raped and burned [?]”

Alter concluded, “the New York Times that came to us indicated that they wanted to do a story in memory of Gal and Nagy [her husband] and that’s why we approved. If we knew that it was a headline like rape slaughter, we would never agree. Never.”

Is Alter’s statement accusing you of misleading her family true? And why have you ignored her comments bluntly stating that her sister had not been raped? Did you and Alter ever discuss your theory that Abdush was the victim of a sexual assault?

Gal Abdush’s brother-in-law has also spoken out against the claims contained in your article. In a January 4 interview with Israel’s Channel 13, Nissim Abdush denied that Gal had been raped, insisting that it would have been impossible given her husband was present with her at the time. “The media invented it,” he stated. Nissim Abdush also accused the international press – presumably referring to you – of resorting to sensationalism in place of evidence-based journalism. Finally, he lamented that the false claims of his sister-in-law’s rape were harmful to the psychological health of her orphaned children.

Once again, why have you failed to incorporate statements by a family member of Gal Abdush explicitly contradicting key claims in your article?

Eti Bracha, the mother of Gal Abdush, told Israel’s YNet she was first told that her daughter had been raped when she was contacted by you. “We didn’t know about the rape at first, we only knew when the New York Times reporter contacted us. They said they cross-examined the evidence and said that Gal had been sexually assaulted. Until now we don’t know what exactly happened,” added the mother.

Is it normal journalistic protocol to influence a family’s perspective of a loved one’s killing, when the crime remains unsolved? How did the New York Times obtain evidence which the Bracha-Abdush family had not yet seen? And what evidence existed beyond the video mentioned in your article?

There are more issues with your reporting on the killing of Gal Abdush. You claim that a video of Abdush filmed on October 8 by someone named Eden Wessely “went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress [was] their missing friend, sister or daughter.”

However, as the independent outlet Mondoweiss pointed out, you “did not link to the video but released a distant, indistinct image from it that revealed nothing.” Mondoweiss questions how you “confirmed the existence of these responses since Wessely’s Instagram account has been banned, and she created a new account in mid-December.”

Further, as Mondoweiss noted, “There is currently no trace of the video on the internet despite the [NY Times] claim that it ‘went viral.’ Moreover, the Israeli press, despite reporting on hundreds of stories about the October 7 victims, never mentioned ‘the woman in the black dress’ even once previous to the December 28 story.”

So where is the video that you claimed “went viral”? If it contained such powerful evidence of sexual violence, why was it not featured in your article? And how did you confirm the thousands of responses to the video by people supposedly demanding information about “the woman in the black dress”?

Israeli police “failed to connect the acts with the victims”

Haaretz reported on January 4, “The police are having difficulty locating victims of sexual assault from the Hamas attack, or people who witnessed such attacks, and decided to appeal to the public to encourage those who have information on the matter to come forward and give testimony. Even in the few cases in which the organization collected testimony about sexual offenses committed on October 7, it failed to connect the acts with the victims who were harmed by them.”

Why are the Israeli police struggling to find witnesses of sexual assault which your paper confidently described on October 7 as so widespread that it demonstrated “a pattern?”

Israeli police “key witness” quoted by Times made impossible claims; evidence is elusive

You describe a 24-year-old accountant identified as “Sapir” as “one of the Israeli police’s key witnesses.”

Yet one of Sapir’s key claims undermines the rest of her testimony. According to the Times, “she saw three other women raped and terrorists carrying the severed heads of three more women.”

Given that no record exists of women being beheaded on October 7, why did you include this claim from Sapir? Does such an assertion not undermine her credibility and raise doubts about the rest of her testimony? And why, at minimum, did you not mention that there is no forensic evidence to support Sapir’s claim?

According to Haaretz, “investigators were unable to identify the women who, according to the testimony of [Sapir] and other eyewitnesses, were raped and murdered.” Israeli Police Superintendent Adi Edry told the paper, “I have circumstantial evidence, but ultimately my duty is to find evidence that supports her testimony and to find the victims’ identity. At this stage I don’t have those specific corpses.”

Why did the New York Times fail to interview Edry and other investigators about Sapir’s testimony, and demand corroborating evidence to support the supposed witness’s lurid claims of gang rape, mutilation and mass beheadings? How do Edry’s statements to Haaretz reflect on Sapir’s reliability?

You also neglected to note a glaring discrepancy between Sapir’s claims to you and in previous accounts. Sapir is the only known female witness who claims to have seen sexual violence on Oct. 7th. Her story – and that of another male “witness,” Yura, who was with her – has radically changed.

On Nov. 8th, Haaretz reported that a female witness – almost certainly Sapir – claimed that she saw men in fatigues bend one woman over, shoot her in the head, and mutilate her body.

Her friend who was hiding with her — all but certainly Yura — then claims he “didn’t see the rape,” but that Sapir “told him at the time what she saw.”

Fast forward to Dec. 28th, and Sapir and Yura tell the NYT a completely new tale:

According to Sapir, there is now not one woman victim, but two women. And now no one is shot. The first woman was bent over and repeatedly knifed in the back when she flinched. The second woman was raped, had her breast cut off, and the terrorists supposedly played with the breast. Then she saw three severed heads.

And whereas Yura previously did not witness the rape, he now – according to the NYT – says he “described seeing a woman raped and killed.”

So at this point, according to these “witnesses,” there is not one but two female rape victims. And there is no longer a mere shooting, but a breast mutilation, knifing, and three severed heads. What’s more, the male “witness” now suddenly remembers seeing a rape after not seeing one the first time he told the story.

Why did you ignore these glaring discrepancies from your own “witnesses”? If these are somehow different witnesses, why did you neglect to interview them or even mention their existence?

Testimony by supposed paramedic debunked by official records, previous record of lying to media

You write, “A paramedic in an Israeli commando unit said that he had found the bodies of two teenage girls in a room in Be’eri. One was lying on her side, he said, boxer shorts ripped, bruises by her groin. The other was sprawled on the floor face down, he said, pajama pants pulled to her knees, bottom exposed, semen smeared on her back.”

You report that the paramedic conveniently “kept moving and did not document the scene.” However, “neighbors of the two girls killed — who were sisters, 13 and 16 — said their bodies had been found alone, separated from the rest of their family.”

That paramedic appears to be the same source CNN relied on in its own special report accusing Hamas of a systematic and deliberate campaign of rape on October 7. He is a supposed paramedic from Israeli Air Force Special Tactics rescue unit 669 identified only as “G.” And like your other sources, he has proven to be an unreliable, if not deeply dishonest, witness.

The closest match to the teenage girls described by “G” is Yahel and Noiya Sharabi, who were 13 and 16, respectively. But according to the Times of Israel, the girls’ bodies were “found in an embrace” with their mother, and not “alone, separated from the rest of the family,” as stated by the anonymous neighbors you quoted.

Israeli media has also reported, “Lianne and Yahel [Sharabi] could only be identified through DNA samples. Noiya was identified through her teeth only two days ago.”

How was the paramedic “G” able to detect semen on one of the girls, and bruises on the other, and view their states of undress, if their bodies were, in fact, burned beyond recognition?

Why did you not cross check the anonymous, supposed paramedic’s testimony with evidence from the scene?

“G,” was previously interviewed by the right-wing Republic TV of India. In that appearance, he described in a distinctive Brooklyn accent how his “teammate” found “a baby, perhaps not even more than a year old, with multiple points stabbed all over his body and tossed into the garbage.”


This was a clear falsehood, as only one baby was recorded among the dead on October 7: Mila Cohen, who was accidentally shot, not stabbed, and who was not found in any garbage can.

Why did the documented record of fabrication by “G” not lead you to question his testimony? Did you vet “G” to verify that he was actually on the ground in Kibbutz Be’eri when he said he was? How do you know he was a paramedic with an Israeli special forces unit, and not an Israeli intelligence operative?

Times’ key “eyewitness” changed story multiple times, did not mention rape in initial testimony

Similar issues of credibility arise when considering the testimony you collected from an Israeli special forces veteran and mercenary named Raz Cohen.

Since his first interview on October 9, Cohen has altered his testimony several times.

Cohen told the NYT he personally witnessed a white van filled with Hamas militants pull up a mile from the Nova music festival, gather over a woman, and gang rape her: “I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.” He said they then butchered the woman with knives.

When Cohen was interviewed on October 9 about the attack on the music festival, however, he did not mention any act of sexual assault committed by Hamas militants. See here and here.

A day later, Cohen began to introduce vague suggestions of sexual assault into his testimony, but did not indicate that he witnessed any such acts taking place: “The terrorists captured women and hurt them in any way possible, and when they were done with them, they started butchering them in front of their friends,” Cohen told an Israeli publication.

Cohen was also interviewed by Canada’s CBC on October 10, but was not quoted about witnessing any rape. The same day, Cohen offered lurid new details to PBS, claiming that “the terrorists” not only slaughtered women after raping them on October 7, but engaged in necrophilia as well: “The terrorists, people from Gaza, raped girls. And after they raped them, they killed them, murdered them with knives, or the opposite, killed — and after they raped, they — they did that.”

Testimony he provided to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on October 11 differed slightly, and remained vague: “We see from there a lot of people and girls screaming and murdered by knives. And the girls, the terrorists rape them,” he stated abruptly and without apparent emotion.

By this point, no Israeli media had reported that any rapes occurred on October 7.

Cohen quickly fell off the media’s radar. He would not be heard from again until you interviewed him. The novel testimony he delivered to you raises serious questions about his credibility, and that of your newspaper’s editorial standards.

How and why did Cohen’s story transform so dramatically over time, providing explosive new details at a moment of political urgency for the army in which he served? Was it plausible that a group of hardened Hamas commandoes suddenly paused their surprise attack, which was focused on taking as many captives as quickly as possible, stood in a circle and gang raped a woman, one after another, while Israeli forces mobilized to attack them? Why did Hamas militants use knives to kill their victims, as Cohen alleged, when they carried rifles and grenades? Why did he drop his earlier allegation of necrophilia when speaking to the Times? And why did he mention seeing “a lot of people and girls” being raped to the ABC on October 11, but alter his testimony to refer specifically to a single female victim when interviewed by the Times?

Perhaps most importantly, why did Cohen’s friend, Shoam Gueta, who took shelter with him on October 7, not describe witnessing a gang rape when interviewed by the Times?

There is also the issue of Cohen’s odd behavior during the October 7, and in its aftermath. Would someone who claimed to have witnessed a horrific gang rape and mass murder have been taking selfies of himself smiling and making the trademark Hawaiian “shaka” hand gesture? And if that source appeared in an October 7-themed fashion show to gain celebrity and potential profit off their experience at the Nova music festival, would that not also raise questions about their credibility? Because that is precisely what Raz Cohen did.


Times’ “rescuer” source has established pattern of lying, embellishment; works for group with documented history of sexual abuse, corruption

You prominently feature testimony by Yossi Landau, Southern Commander of the ZAKA organization. For critical background on Landau and his organization, we refer you to Max Blumenthal’s December 6 investigation for The Grayzone, “Scandal-stained Israeli ‘rescue’ group fuels October 7 fabrications.”

Were you aware, as The Grayzone documented, that Landau’s previous claims of having seen beheaded babies and a fetus cut from a dead woman’s womb on October 7 have been discredited not only by the Israeli newspaper by Haaretz, but by the Biden White House, which retracted the president’s claim that he had seen photographs of beheaded babies? In fact, only one baby is recorded among those killed on October 7, which means any claim to have seen multiple dead babies must be dismissed out of hand.

Were you aware that failing to provide photographic evidence to back up his dubious testimony, Yossi Landau has said that those who question his claims “should be killed”?

Why did you not mention ZAKA’s lack of coronary credentials, which makes it unqualified to provide forensic evidence? And why were Times readers not informed of ZAKA’s active relationship with the Israeli military?

Were you aware that the founder and longtime leader of ZAKA attempted suicide in 2021 after facing multiple charges of rape of youth of both genders, and that Israeli media published reams of reports documenting corruption and theft of donations by ZAKA leadership?

Taken together with Landau’s well-established pattern of lying about October 7 atrocities, the organization’s record of high-level corruption and malfeasance should have raised bright red flags for any journalistic professional.


NY Times report larded with innuendo that proves nothing

The Times states that women were “shot in the vagina” on October 7. Did this occur during combat, as many women were serving as active duty soldiers on base as part of the Gaza Division at the time? Were they shot in other parts of their body as well? How does this prove your confidently stated assertion that rape occurred on a systematic level on October 7?

You also write of a “woman’s corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin.” In what way did this support your conclusion of a “pattern of gender based violence” on October 7? Did a Hamas militant meticulously drive nails into a woman’s pelvic region before bringing an entire home down on her? Or were the nails actually part of furniture, drywall or other parts of the housing structure which collapsed on the female victim? The latter instance would seem far more plausible, as such injuries are now commonly witnessed – though never detailed by the Times – in the Gaza Strip, where thousands of civilians have been killed by the Israeli military in their homes with heavy munitions.

Finally, who or what was responsible for reducing parts of a kibbutz to rubble? Did Hamas militants armed only with automatic rifles and RPG launchers have the capacity to destroy entire homes? Or was the female Israeli casualty described in your article, in fact, a victim of friendly fire from an Israeli tank shell or Hellfire missile?

The public now knows that many Israeli noncombatants were killed by their country’s military on October 7. They know this largely thanks to the work of The Grayzone and other independent outlets. We were initially attacked for our work, but now Israeli media is demanding answers as well. Major legacy media organizations like yours continue to ignore serious political scandals like these while pursuing factually-challenged, shamefully unethical journalistic efforts aimed at legitimizing the Israeli government’s public relations objectives.

https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/