To date, the United Nations has refused to define the mass rapes and massacre that took place on October 7 as an act of terrorism.
By Rachel Avraham
Although the international community has universally condemned terrorism, they have still failed to come up with a universally accepted definition for terrorism. This lack of universal acceptance on a global definition for terrorism is a major hindrance for everyone who wants the international community to recognize the mass rapes that took place on October 7 and the sexual violence suffered by the hostages as a form of terrorism. After all, if the world cannot even agree on what is terrorism, how can they agree to define nationally-motivated rape like what Hamas did as a form of terrorism? It appears for far too many in the international community, one man’s terrorist remains another man’s freedom fighter, including in cases of rape and sexual violence.
As Professor Ben Saul, the Challis Chair of International Law from the University of Sydney, noted, “The challenge is ultimately not technical—anything can be positively defined by a treaty—but political. For some states, the emphasis should be on condemning state violence, while exempting violence in pursuit of self-determination or national liberation from foreign occupation. Other states prefer to focus on non-state violence, irrespective of motivation, including because state violence is already regulated by other rules.”
Professor Saul continued, “At the international level, there is now a basic legal consensus that terrorism is criminal violence intended to intimidate a population or coerce a government or international organization; some national laws add a further specific intention to advance a political, religious, or ideological cause. There remain strong political disagreements, however, on the extent to which state and self-determination violence should be included, and on the relationship between counter-terrorism law and IHL (which already regulates all violence in armed conflict). As a result, a conceptual impasse continues, even if international legal agreement has been edging closer.”
Although the international community has as of yet to come up with an internationally accepted definition for terrorism, there is universal acceptance that rape can be utilized as a terrorist weapon. UN Security Council Resolution 2242 proclaims that the United Nations expressed “deep concern that acts of sexual and gender-based violence are known to be part of the strategic objectives and ideology of certain terrorist groups, used as a tactic of terrorism, and an instrument to increase their power through supporting financing, recruitment, and the destruction of communities.” According to Relief Web, “This is reaffirmed in UN Security Council Resolution 2734 with regard to the 1267 sanctions regime.”
The UN has also recognized that rape and other forms of sexual violence took place on October 7 and among the hostages in captivity. They are not among the October 7 mass rape denialists. In a 2023 UN Report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, the United Nations proclaimed: “According to the mission report of my Special Representative, based on the information gathered, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang rape, in at least three locations”: the Nova music festival site and its surroundings, Road 232 and kibbutz Re’im.”
The report continued, “At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or gang rape and then killed”. “There are further accounts of individuals who witnessed at least two incidents of rape of corpses of women”. “On Road 232, credible information based on witness accounts describe an incident of the rape of two women by armed elements”. The mission report also states that “[i]n kibbutz Re’im, the mission team further verified an incident of the rape of a woman outside of a bomb shelter” and that “[a] cross the various locations of the 7 October attacks, the mission team found that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head”.”
According to the UN report, “in the case of Road 232, a similar pattern was found, which also included the bodies of a few men. “Although circumstantial, such a pattern of undressing and restraining of victims may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.” Regarding the hostages taken to Gaza, “the mission team received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity and has reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may be ongoing.””
However, to date, the United Nations has not recognized Hamas as a terror organization. A number of countries including Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, alongside the European Union, recognize Hamas to be a terror organization. However, after October 7, 2023, the United Nations General Assembly failed to pass an amendment condemning Hamas for the October 7 massacre, including the mass rapes and other brutal sexual violence that took place. They have also refused to pass a motion calling Hamas a terror organization. As a result, the United Nations has still not referred to October 7 mass rapes as an “act of terrorism.”
This is a major blow for the victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence during the October 7 massacre. Rape and sexual terror are just as much an act of terrorism as suicide bombings, rocket attacks, stone-throwing and every other weapon employed by the Palestinian terror organizations in the framework of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The time has come for this to be recognized. Rape, like terrorism, is all about obtaining power, dominance, and control over the victims, thus prompting them to feel helpless and weak. Thus, Judaism considers rape to be equivalent to murder for the very nature of that crime is that it literally slaughters the soul of the female victim.
The time has come for the international community to recognize Hamas sexual terrorism for what it is. If the international community seeks to succeed in the global struggle against terrorism, then there needs to be a universally accepted definition for terrorism that recognizes that nationally-motivated rape is a form of terrorism, as the legal system in the State of Israel already recognizes. This means that the international community must stop treating Hamas with kids gloves and start to call a spade a spade.
In other words, the United Nations Security Council should pass a resolution recognizing a) an internationally accepted definition for terrorism that includes an acknowledgement that nationally-motivated sexual violence is a form of terrorism; b) should pass a resolution recognizing Hamas to be a terror organization; and b) should pass a resolution condemning the mass rapes that took place in the framework of the October 7 massacre as an act of terrorism. Only once this happens can Israel be successful in its struggle against Hamas, for having the West recognize Hamas as a terror organization and the October 7 massacre as a terrorist act is not enough. All of the world should do likewise. Only when the world unites in defining Hamas as a terror organization and nationally-motivated sexual violence as a form of terrorism can Hamas truly be pushed into a corner and can this war be truly won. Without this, Hamas will find loopholes in the international system, so that they can continue to wage terror attacks against the State of Israel, leading to more brutal massacres where rape and other forms of sexual violence is utilized.
