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See Also: Our complete analysis of sexual violence claims
This document critically examines the New York Times’ coverage of claims that Hamas militants weaponized sexual violence during the October 7 attack on Israel. It lays out the claims and scrutinizes the credibility of the sources who provided them. Several witnesses should be considered unreliable, and Israeli police have yet to produce forensic evidence supporting rape claims or connecting bodies to witness descriptions.
It is highly likely that rape occurred on October 7. However, even if all witness accounts are accurate, the relatively sparse number of claims and limited evidence compared to the scale of the attack on Oct 7 suggests that allegations of mass rape used as a systematic weapon of war are unfounded.