Trigger Warning – Discussion of sexual assault, femicide, kidnapping and torture
You do believe me, don’t you?
It happened to me twice. Attempted sexual assault. The first time it happened, I had just turned 19-years old and I was staying over at my friend’s house. She and her brother were having a house party. I chatted with a lot of people but didn’t think I was giving out any vibes to any guy in particular. Eventually, we went to bed – she had two beds in her room. It was around 4ish in the morning last I checked. I was just falling asleep, when he was on top of me, telling me how much he liked me, and he knew how much I liked him too. He said that he knew that this is what I wanted. I kept begging him to get off of me, and he wouldn’t – it was so hard to breathe, impossible to scream. My friend woke up and yelled “get off of her, she doesn’t want this” and he kept insisting that I did. Eventually, her brother and another of his friends had to get him off of me. Her brother apologized.
The second time it happened, I was 20 and it was at home. A few of us were going out later that night, and we were hanging out in the basement. I said that I would go up and wait for the last couple of people to come. Loud music was playing in the basement. One of the guys arrived. It was just the two of us upstairs. He had been drinking heavily. I had a small rash on my neck and he thought it was a hickey. I insisted that it was just a rash.
He kept getting angrier and angrier with me, insisting that I knew what I was doing. I knew how he felt about me and that the mark on my neck was a scarlet letter. It wasn’t. I turned away from him about to go downstairs, but he knocked me down. I couldn’t breathe. It was even worst than the first time. He pinned me and I couldn’t move. He covered my mouth with one hand so that I couldn’t scream. I desperately looked for something to grab to make noise but I couldn’t. His other hand was everywhere. I remember hoping it would just end.
I struggled but realized that he was a foot taller and about 100 pounds heavier. It was like a nightmare where you can’t scream for help. He knew that he winded me because he removed his hand from my mouth. He bent my wrist so far back that I thought he would break it. When he went to take his shirt off, somehow I managed to say help – it wasn’t loud, but eventually three of my male friends heard and pulled him off of me. One of them looked at me and said, “I can’t believe that you let him do that to you.” I was so ashamed. I thought that it was my fault.
Back then, women were blamed. We sent out the wrong signals. Our clothes meant that we were asking for it. I never felt like I could talk about it. In the last couple of years, I told one of my friends. He believed me of course, but I only told him about one of the assaults. I couldn’t bring myself to talk about how it happened to me twice. But you believe me don’t you?
Bring Back Our Girls
October 7 was the worst massacre Jewish people since the Holocaust. People of many nationalities that lived in Israel were murdered or kidnapped. Many of the kidnapped, 134 people in total, are still being held prisoner.
After surviving two assaults, I can’t imagine how at least some of the female hostages are dealing with being raped daily. I imagine what it must be like for them to go through worse than I went through, multiple times a day. I also shudder when I hear the denial of their stories, reminding me of what it was like for women, like me coming of age in the 1990’s. Even the United Nations came to the conclusion that, at the very least, the hostages suffered sexual violence:
“Based on the information it gathered, the mission team found clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment has been committed against hostages,” the U.N. said in a report, adding that it “has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing against those still held in captivity.”
“In most of these incidents, victims first subjected to rape were then killed, and at least two incidents relate to the rape of women’s corpses,” the U.N. said in a news release Monday. There was, according to the report, rape and gang rape in at least three locations: the Nova music festival site and the area around it, as well as Road 232 and Kibbutz Re’im. The New York Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.*
The rapes were called, according to many news reports, some of the most egregious acts that can occur in wartime.** Some were raped so many times that their pelvises were shattered.
These women have names and while I can’t highlight each one of them, I can mention some of the stories that stayed with me. For International Women’s Day, it is time to Bring Back Our Girls and to highlight these women who are still in captivity.
Bring Back Our Girls: Noa Argamani
Noa Argamani was at the Nova Festival with her boyfriend when she was kidnapped. She was taken away on a speeding motorcycle. Footage captured of the 26-year old screaming and reaching for her boyfriend effectively made her the face of Nova Music Festival hostages. That video has played time and time again. According to an NBC News report, it is likely that she was kidnapped by “a mob of Gazans that swept into Israel hours after the initial attack. That may explain why she was not released during the November cease-fire: Hamas may not be holding her, or even know where she is.” We have since seen a video of her and we do know, from hostage testimony, that many were moved around.
What is so deeply sad about her story, other than the obvious, is that her mother, Liora, has terminal brain cancer that is progressing rapidly. She desperately wants to see her daughter before she dies and to know that she’s ok. A heartbreaking story in a sea of them. You do believe Noa, don’t you?
Bring Back Our Girls: Naama Levy
The sight of 19-year old, Naama Levy being dragged at gunpoint, out of the back of a jeep by a terrorist by her hair, the back of her sweatpants soaked with blood, barefoot with her heels cut is another image from that day burned into the minds of many. Her mother, Dr. Ayelet Levy Shachar, felt that it was important for the world to see this video, although it broke her heart.
“This is what happened to my daughter. It’s a short film that totally does not represent anything about her except the cruelty of those moments and the moment where our lives just stopped and froze. And it’s been October 7th ever since.”***
I saw a tweet from a female doctor state that the blood that we all saw on Naama Levy’s pants was not indicative of rape. We all saw it. We know what it was. I don’t need to write it here. I saw others deny it on Reddit by saying women can’t bleed when they are raped. All false. You do believe Naama, don’t you?
Bring Back Our Girls: Karina Ariev
19 year old Jerusalem resident, Karina Ariev, tearfully told her parents to continue their lives on October 7 before she was taken captive. She was used in a propaganda video – her face and hair caked with blood. She is one of the youngest women still being held captive in Gaza.
Her sister described Karina as “very kind, very humble, and an innocent, pure creature. I can’t stop thinking about her and I will do anything to get her back.”
Imagine being her sister, her parents, a friend, thinking about what she could be being subjected to.
One former hostage described the conditions that women like Karina were being subjected to:
“Some of the girls were badly wounded and haven’t been getting proper medical care,” she said of hostages she saw. “Gunshot wounds, even lost limbs. They said they can cope with the disability but not with the manner they were constantly violated.”****
You do believe Karina, don’t you?
It was so difficult picking just three stories. There are so many more. We will try to tell them all and some of the stories like Shani Louk’s who won’t be coming home. We will tell the story of what we saw at Kfar Aza and our conversation with one of the hostage’s brothers.
Bring Back Our Girls: Proof?
I can’t supply proof so many years after the fact that I was assaulted. You have to take my word for it. Many people need proof that the women of October 7th were raped before they were murdered. The challenge is that a corpse cannot speak, therefore we must be their voice. Their bodies told a story. A story of genital mutilation and more torture and rape. Many journalists who saw the 47 minute video from Hamas Go Pro cameras and more saw multiple images of women bleeding, their pants bloodied or naked from the waist down. How much more evidence do you need, short of a movie of it?
You do believe them don’t you? On International Women’s Day, it is time to believe women.
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*Source – The New York Times – ‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
**Source – NBC News – Video included in Noa Argamani became the face of the Nova music festival hostages
***Source – CNN ‘For her, time is running out’: A mother’s desperate plea to get her bloodied and battered daughter out of Hamas captivity
**** Source – The Times of Israel – UK’s Daily Mail highlights plight of 4 youngest female captives still held by Hamas
