The Israeli government rapidly deployed a multipronged propaganda strategy to win unprecedented support from the U.S. and other Western governments for a sweeping war against the entire population of Gaza. To oppose Israel’s war is antisemitic; to question its assertions about the events of October 7 is akin to Holocaust denial; to protest the mass killing of Palestinian civilians is to do the bidding of Hamas.

From the earliest moments following the October 7 attacks, Israel charged that women had been raped by Hamas fighters, though it was often an allegation made in sequence alongside other alleged atrocities. But in mid-November, those assertions began evolving into a sustained public blitz, accusing Hamas of instituting a plan to “systematically rape women.” Israel government spokesperson Eylon Levy spoke “Hamas rapist machine.”

To date, there has been no credible evidence presented publicly that such a campaign took place, and Hamas has vehemently denied that its fighters committed any acts of rape or sexual assault. The fact that Israel has not produced forensic evidence for individual rapes does not prove that no such deeds took place. Rape investigations are often complex, particularly when the crime occurs amid a chaotic scene of mass violence. Sexual violence is common in warfare, and it often takes years for the full story of such crimes to emerge.

There was no Holocaust survivor killed at Kibbutz Be’eri that day. There were no mass beheadings of babies, no group executions in a nursery, no children hung from clotheslines, and no infants placed in ovens. No pregnant woman had her stomach cut open and the fetus knifed in front of her and her other children. These stories are entirely fictional, a set of audacious lies weaponized to generate the type of collective rage used to justify the unjustifiable.

  • LarmyOfLone@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Read the article, some of the accusations were made up by some Israeli extremist group and then were pumped into us media by pretty sophisticated operations.

      • TimeNaan@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        She has blood on her pants after a bloody mass shooting. It doesn’t prove anything.

        Either Israel provides actual evidence or they will be treated as liars, as they should be, because of all the lies they told in order to justify their genocide in Gaza.

        • Rapidcreek@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Notice that they cut her Achilles tendon so she couldn’t run away?

          Reprehensible is the right word for denialism.

          No amount of proof will reverse your denial.

          • TimeNaan@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Wtf are you on about, she has scrapes on her legs, nobody cut her tendons or she wouldnt be able to stand at all. Also way more blood.

            I’m still waiting for any proof of SYSTEMATIC rape that’s more than a photo of some bloody pants. Won’t happen tho, because that was not a thing.

            Yes, they killed a lot of innocent civilians. No, they did not mass rape them or behead babies. You are falling for propaganda meant to create bloodlust and support for the IDF’s heinous and illegal actions.