Israel says Palestinian attackers committed sexual violence on Oct. 7. Some accounts of rape were substantiated by a U.N. report, but the allegations continue to face intense scrutiny.
This story contains descriptions of graphic violence and sexual assault.
One body he handled belonged to a woman who was found partially naked, Otmazgin said. Her skirt had been lifted all the way up, she had no underwear, and there was a wound between her legs, he said. Five months after Oct. 7, the allegations surrounding sexual violence have emerged as one of the most contentious issues about the attacks. Efforts to investigate the claims —found"reasonable grounds to believe" that sexual violence,"including rape and gang rape," occurred in at least three locations on Oct. 7, including the site of the Nova rave.
Scrutiny has focused especially on Zaka. The group's workers, including Otmazgin, are not trained in forensics, and some Zaka volunteers' accounts of the aftermath were later discredited. The organization's response to the attacks has been criticized, including accusations that its handling of remains may have inadvertently destroyed evidence.
Later, as Israeli security forces fought with militants and worked to secure the area, they moved bodies they encountered back to the central site of the rave — a decision that decreased the size of the area the military had to keep secure but that compromised responders' ability to understand what had happened to the victims.
"You see that the person has been stripped of their clothes, and you have to photograph. You try to pull down the skirt a bit, take the photo, and then you pack the body up. All this is done in 20 or 30 seconds total," he said."At this stage, you don't even stop."A team of Zaka volunteers clean up human remains from the Oct. 7 attacks in a home in Kfar Azza, Israel.A team of Zaka volunteers clean up human remains from the Oct. 7 attacks in a home in Kfar Azza, Israel.
In total, NPR reviewed 19 photographs that Otmazgin said were taken either by him or by someone else in his crew as they responded together to the scene. The remains of at least 20 people are visible in the pictures, including several suspected victims of sexual violence. Otmazgin also spoke with U.N. researchers and shared photographs with them, he said.
In another example, the authors said some burned bodies had been mistaken for possible victims of sexual violence due to a physiological effect known as"pugilistic posturing," in which extreme temperatures can cause muscles to shrink, resulting in a pose with clenched hands, bent arms and legs, and legs spread open.
Compounding the challenge in Israel is the relative lack of physical forensic evidence, as noted by the U.N. team and in other reports byExperts, including the authors of the U.N. report, say that forensic evidence is not necessary for human rights bodies or courts of law to make findings about sexual violence.effect, where there is a perception that without forensic evidence or DNA, then you don't have a case. And that's just patently not true," Naimer said.
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