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A major new report by Israeli and international experts brings together for the first time the testimonies of 15 freed hostages who survived sexual abuse in Hamas captivity. According to the Sunday Times, only one of these victims, lawyer Amit Susanna, who was held in Gaza for 55 days, has previously spoken publicly. The others have remained silent until now.

The study called Project Dina was initiated by professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women at Bar-Ilan University. It was co-authored by former Israeli deputy attorney general and judge Nava Ben-Or and international law expert and former chief military advocate Sharon Zagagi-Pinchas. The project was funded in part by the UK government.

The report to be released Tuesday in Jerusalem is the most comprehensive study to date of the sexual violence committed by Hamas militants during the October 7th attack. It contains personal accounts from 15 freed hostages, 17 eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims and doctors and therapists who treated the victims.

The report says the sexual violence on October 7th was not random or sporadic but “widespread and systematic.” It was used as a weapon of war, a tactical tool of terror and destruction. It documents rapes and gang rapes in six different locations, including the Nova festival, Route 232, Nahal Oz base, and kibbutzim Re’im, Nir Oz and Kfar Aza. Most of the victims were killed or left so traumatized they are unable to speak to this day.

“We found recurring patterns of violence: women’s bodies bound and naked, tied to trees and poles, with gunshot wounds to the genitals. Some had been raped after death,” the report says.

Sexual abuse continued in captivity. Hostages reported forced nudity, sexual harassment, beatings and threats of rape or forced “marriage.” Two men were among the victims. One had his head shaved, which the authors say is also a form of sexualized humiliation.

The authors emphasize that one of the goals of the report is to overcome international silence and denial. After the first reports of violence were published, UN Women and a number of UN agencies ignored the facts or were late to respond. In some cases it was claimed Hamas as an Islamic organization couldn’t have committed these atrocities. The Dina Project’s research refutes this claim, citing among others precedents from ISIS and Boko Haram.

“The global community of women has failed us,” professor Halperin-Kaddari says. “If the principle is to believe victims and eyewitnesses, then why was a different standard applied here? The silence, denial and willful ignorance is a tragic moral failure.”

Judge Ben-Or added such crimes cannot be investigated using standard methods, since most of the victims are dead or unable to testify. Therefore the project proposes a new legal model for accountability for mass crimes of sexual violence.

The report calls on the UN secretary-general to send an independent investigative mission to Israel and to blacklist Hamas as an organization which uses sexual violence as a weapon of war. Sharon Zagagi-Pinchas said “silence is not an answer.” The project was named after Dina, daughter of Jacob, the first victim of sexual abuse in the Bible who left voiceless.

“We want to be a voice for those who can no longer speak,” Halperin-Kaddari said.