Israel and its friends have struggled to bring credibility to allegations of systematic rape by Hamas members on October 7th – once again, a testimony falls apart.
bAdam Rasgon and
New video has surfaced that undercuts the account of an Israeli military paramedic who said two teenagers killed in the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 were sexually assaulted.
The unnamed paramedic, from an Israeli commando unit, was among dozens of people interviewed for a Dec. 28 article by The New York Times that examined sexual violence on Oct. 7. He said he discovered the bodies of two partially clothed teenage girls in a home in Kibbutz Be’eri that bore signs of sexual violence.
[NOTE: assertions in the Times article have been debunked on multiple occasions – for example here, here, and here.]
The Associated Press, CNN and The Washington Post reported similar accounts from a military paramedic who spoke on condition of anonymity.
But footage taken by an Israeli soldier who was in Be’eri on Oct. 7, which was viewed by leading community members in February and by The Times this month, shows the bodies of three female victims, fully clothed and with no apparent signs of sexual violence, at a home where many residents had believed the assaults occurred.
Though it is unclear if the medic was referring to the same scene, residents said that in no other home in Be’eri were two teenage girls killed, and they concluded from the video that the girls had not been sexually assaulted.