A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7.
Relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors, The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.
Four witnesses described in graphic detail seeing women raped and killed at two different places along Route 232, the same highway where Ms. Abdush’s half-naked body was found sprawled on the road at a third location.
And The Times interviewed several soldiers and volunteer medics who together described finding more than 30 bodies of women and girls in and around the rave site and in two kibbutzim in a similar state as Ms. Abdush’s — legs spread, clothes torn off, signs of abuse in their genital areas.
They certainly wanted to provoke a huge reaction – starting a war and derailing normalization of relations with other states in the ME. They were probably a bit like the dog that caught the car. It’s doubtful they thought they would be as successful as they were. They were likely hoping the hostages would temper Israel’s response. They probably didn’t anticipate the success and brutality of the attack making the hostages less of a factor in Israel’s decision-making.