"Sexual trauma always raises the question: 'Did it happen? Show me the evidence'."

"People ask for video clips or photographs.The survivors do not owe anybody anything. They only owe themselves the chance to recover. There was a clash between the well-being and mental health of survivors and the demand -- from foreign governments, journalists and others -- for stories and evidence."

"The stories belong to the survivors. Some survivors of sexual violence from Nova [Music Festival] do not want to speak publicly. They do not want the stigma. That should be accepted and respected."

"The public does not understand the scale [of the atrocities], because it is not only direct victims, it's survivors from captivity, Nova, the kibbutzim and the military."

"It is also first responders and people who handled bodies."

Orit Sulitzeanu, executive director, Association of Rape Crisis Centers, Israel 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu places a wreath at a memorial ceremony for the third anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, at Mount Herzl Cemetery, Jerusalem, on Monday, October 5, 2026.   Debbie Hill/Pool/Reuters

 

Videos? There were videos galore, taken with body cams worn by some among the thousands of Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas into southern Israel on October 7, 2023 for the very purpose of chronicling the sadistic bestiality they planned to carry out among Israeli girls and women. Videos that were proudly shown on social media so they could elicit praise from the admirers of terrorism. Many of whom would later deny that this was terrorism, merely a long-overdue reckoning of an oppressed people; oppressed because the Jewish state would not turn over its ancestral heritage to Arab colonizers.

 

The Israelis who lived near the border of Gaza in collective farming communities -- kibbutzim, were firm in their belief that kindness and helpful understanding of the plight of Palestinians living in poverty in Gaza would result in mutual friendship. Hiring Palestinians for agricultural work, giving them the opportunity to earn fair wages, to enable them to raise their families with a guaranteed income providing the necessities of life, and more. And to demonstrate just how accepting the kibbutz residents were, eating their meals alongside the invited Palestinians in the collective dining rooms.

 

Friendships were indeed made, and trust went with it. Among the kibbutznik help offered to Palestinians requiring medical attention whereby they would be driven to Israeli hospitals to receive needed medical care, for hospitals in Israel treat everyone in medical need. There appeared to be no cautionary approach but one of open wholesale acceptance. That there are no real differences between the Israelis living on the opposite side of the border to Gaza, and Gazans themselves. All are human, and worthy of care and consideration.

People attend a memorial service in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, where many community members were killed and abducted on Oct. 7, 2023. (Ariel Schalit/The Associated Press)

 

And then came that early morning rocket barrage; not too unusual at any time, but a diversion on this occasion, to mask a more direct threat, that of thousands of dedicated terrorists from Islamic Jihad, the PLFP, Fatah and Hamas who flooded across the border after bulldozing down the protective barriers and dispatching the Israeli border guards who fought superior numbers and died or were taken captive as hostages. 

 

From there to the kibbutzim where unaware Israelis became targets for instant death. Among the terrorist horde were ordinary Palestinians, some of whom knew the layouts of the kibbutzim quite intimately, some of whom had drawn maps to instruct the invaders where each kibbutz's security center could be found, the security members neutralized before the intruders fanned out and shot at people waiting for buses, barged into homes to torture and kill children in front of their parents, parents in front of their children.

 

Where homes with their residents locked into safe rooms were torched and everyone inside burned to death. The site of the Nova Music Festival nearby, swarmed with terror operatives opening fire on those attempting to flee, firing through the walls of small huts where young men and women gathered to huddle together in the faint hope of not being discovered and survival. Where women caught fleeing were gang-raped, their bodies mutilated, limb from limb.

 

A newly completed study from the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel expected to be released in the new year was geared to studying possible recovery of survivors of sexual violence of that fateful day when savagely depraved men with no conscience shoved metal rods into women's vaginas, even grenades. And nor did the captured men escape sexual violence before their gruesome tortured deaths. The ARCCI's  2024 report -- Silent Cry: Sexual Violence Crimes on October 7, assembled an account of sexual and gender-based violence during and after October 7. The awaited report examines long-term impacts of the sexual trauma.

 

"The health system -- like therapists, hospitals, security personnel -- did sensitive work. They initially met and questioned released hostages. They were generally trauma-informed: they understood not to ask what did not need to be asked. But three years later, what is hugely missing is a national initiative to help people navigate mental health, rehabilitation, employment and bureaucracy. If people do not have someone helping them through the system, they can hardly survive. This will take a decade", explained Orit Sulitzeanu.  

 

The scale and scope of the widespread suffering of those who directly experienced and survived the atrocities, including those who were witness to them, represents a national tragedy as well as a national responsibility to care and to nurture wounded psyches back to health, if at all possible. The horrors of the acts of inhumanity that took place on October 7 are well enough known internationally. Skepticism yet abounds, and what's perhaps worse, disinterest.

 

Commuters in Tel Aviv conduct a moment of silence on the highway as part of a memorial ceremony on Wednesday. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)

 

A severely wounded country reacted as would any other nation following the broad and unforgivable human rights violations that beggar the imagination and brought pain and suffering throughout the country and traumatized the wider Jewish community throughout the diaspora. And yet despite the shock and pain, Jews once again found themselves abandoned by the larger, broader community in countries where they have lived for generations upon generations. 

 

Israel which had suffered such a devastatingly grim wound found itself facing hostile condemnation by its putative allies who aligned themselves with the Palestinian propaganda machinery painting Israel as the aggressor and Palestinians the long-suffering victims who had merely acted out their frustration of a people denied their future state. Terrorists shielding themselves behind and among a civilian population with the direct purpose of saving themselves while submitting civilians to risks of fallout from the response to an unspeakable act of terrorist atrocities used the deaths of those they had manipulated into occurring, as proof of their victimization. 

 

Polls taken by Palestinian polling agents clarify certain realities; in the wake of October 7, with all the details freely available, Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza are in the greater majority in agreeing that the October 7 atrocities had their support, as would reiterations of that vile event. When hostages were being taken into Gaza, both live and dead Israeli men and women, Palestinians were overjoyed and celebratory. Some took to beating the dead bodies of men and women, used as objects for trade in freeing Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons. 

 

The family of Hilly Solomon visits her memorial photo and plaque at the Nova festival memorial site early Wednesday in Reim, as Israel marks the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. (Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images)

 

"This story has become connected to bigger political arguments about Israel and Zionism. But atrocities are atrocities, whatever one's politics. They should be examined first as human acts."

"Sexual violence does not necessarily leave something a survivor can show the world."

"That makes it easier for people to place everything in apolitical context and say, 'You are lying'. I think that is horribly sad."

Orit Sulitzeanu, Association of Rape Crisis Centers, Israel 

All Roads Lead to Jewish Infamy

"The last hour or so of the standoff, he wasn’t getting what he wanted. It didn’t look good. It didn’t sound good. We were terrified."

"When I saw an opportunity where he wasn’t in a good position, I made sure that the two gentlemen who were with me that they were ready to go. The exit wasn’t too far away. I told them to go, I threw a chair at the gunman and I headed for the door. And all three of us were able to get out without even a shot being fired."

"When your life is threatened, and you need to do whatever you can to get to safety [training by the FBI, the Colleyville Police Department, the Anti-Defamation League and the Secure Community Network informed his self-preservation actions]."

Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, Congregation Beth Israel, Colleyville, Texas

 

"He wanted this woman [convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui] released and he wanted to talk to her and he thought -- well, he said point-blank he chose this synagogue because 'Jews control the world. Jews control the media. Jews control the banks. I want to talk to the chief rabbi of the United States'."

"He lectured us. As long as he was talking and somewhat calm, we bought the FBI time to position."

Jeffrey Cohen, vice president, board of trustees, Congregation Beth Israel, Saturday hostage

A police SUV sits outside the synagogue Sunday

A Pakistani-UK national had flown to the United States from Britain. When investigators did a routine check on arrival, nothing untoward was found to identify him as a potential threat. He was there for a purpose only he was aware of...unless he had informed two UK teens now under arrest, rumoured to be his sons. During the ten-hour hostage-taking that ensued on Saturday at the Texas synagogue where he held the synagogue rabbi and three synagogue members hostage, he was known to be speaking by cellphone on a number of occasions to persons unknown. It was later revealed that the arrested teens were in contact with the man during the hostage-taking.

In the week or weeks after his arrival to the United States, the man identified as 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram, spent his nights in homeless shelters. On Saturday when he finally approached the synagogue, ostensibly after having managed to secure for himself weapon sold on the street, he appeared at the synagogue doors as someone needing a place to rest. Rabbi Cytron-Walker described in an interview how he had welcomed the stranger, gave him a warming cup of tea, and proceeded to the evening service.

It was only when he concluded the Sabbath service that he became aware of something suspicious; a sound. When he turned around he saw the stranger withdrawing a gun from the folds of his clothing, likely an outer coat.  Which, obviously, was when he realized with clarity that this was not a good situation that he and three members of the synagogue community found themselves in. Their house of worship had quietly and firmly become their prison and the warden was a terrorist. Carefully, unobtrusively, the rabbi dialled 911 on his cellphone and placed it live on a counter.

Police respond to a  hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue on January 16 in Colleyville, Texas.  Brandon Wade/AP

 

The man was certainly a Jew-hater, spewing the usual anti-Semitic tropes of Jewish control of the world. Jews had no involvement in the arrest and trial and incarceration of a Pakistani neuroscientists who had attended prestigious American universities to obtain her scientific bona fides through a doctorate, but the intruder's mind was fixated in a pathology of belief in Jewish world control and could effect the release of Aafia Siddiqui, serving an 86-year sentence on a conviction of attempted murder of U.S. soldiers and FBI agents attempting to arrest her for planning terrorist attacks with al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Mr. Akram's strident conviction of malicious Jewish world control left no room for reasonable denials on the part of his hostages. And Mr. Akram had prepared himself to become a martyr for Islamist precepts, having expressed his belief that he would not emerge alive from this encounter. He wanted the Pakistani conspiracist freed from her life imprisonment and his intention was to inform law authorities in the U.S. that he was prepared to release his hostages in exchange for Siddiqui's release from prison.

It's quite strange that almost all of the Islamist jihadists who indulge in terrorism representing dutiful faithful in Islam are lovingly remembered by their families as good souls with the misfortune of having been mentally ill, not legally responsible for their acts of violence intended or achieved. And so it is with this man too, his Brother Gulbar posting a description of his now-dead brother as suffering from mental illness and the family fully in co-operating compliance with authorities.

"There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender", brother Gulbar wrote on the Blackburn Muslim Community's Facebook page. "We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident." The Blackburn Muslim Community also stated their position: "totally condemn any threats or attacks on innocent people. We stand in solidarity with people of all faiths as we believe they are all free to practice their religious beliefs freely without the fear of being attacked."

The Muslim Council of Britain, UK’s largest Muslim umbrella body condemned the hostage-taking as "completely unacceptable", that Akram’s "actions fall way short of what is expected of a Muslim. His family and local community in Blackburn have also condemned the perpetrator’s action and are shocked and saddened to learn of this incident."

"[Authorities] just don't have enough facts [to speculate why a man targeted a Colleyville, Texas synagogue, taking four hostages Saturday; the standoff] an act of terror."

"I don't-- we don't have I don't think there is sufficient information to know about why he targeted that synagogue, why he insisted on the release of someone who's been in prison for over 10 years, why he was engaged, why he was using an anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli comments."

U.S. President Joe Biden

Claiming to be the brother of the Pakistani neuroscientist in prison, he obviously meant that colloquially, and not literally; related by heritage, religion and religious extremist ideology. She collaborated with al-Qaeda and Islamic State as a trusted senior operative, and he obviously idolized her status within the jihadist community. CAIR went public with its support of Aafia Siddiqui, demanding her release, as did the government of Pakistan itself. Offers to release Western prisoners of jihad in exchange for her release tell the story of a prized jihadist taken out of commission.

In this July 17, 2008, photo, Aafia Siddiqui is seen in the custody of Counter Terrorism Department of Ghazni province in Ghazni City, Afghanistan. AP

"We North American Muslims need to have the morally required tough conversations about those ‘polite Zionists are our enemies,’ ‘The Benjamins!!!’ voices and realities within our communities."

"[Referencing antisemitic statements made in December by Council on American–Islamic Relations official Zahra Billoo and by US Rep. Ilhan Omar in 2019]."

"We MUST! Without ands and buts, without any further denial, dismissal and or trivializing of the issues … we need to honestly discuss the increasing antisemitism within various Muslim communities."

Abdullah T. Antepli, Associate Professor of the Practice of Interfaith Relations, Duke University