A bipartisan group of 33 senators this week urged the
United Nations to open an independent investigation into what the
senators call a growing body of evidence that Hamas committed
acts
of sexual violence on Israelis during the October 7th attack.
CBS Lilia Luciano now on what eyewitnesses are saying,
and we want to warn you that some of what
you're about to hear is graphic.
It was just after six in the morning when the
first missiles appeared in the sky on October 7th.
Taking off hours of violence.
Ramishmail, who produced the Nova Music Festival,
returned the next day and witnessed the aftermath.
Outside.
Two cars. There was also two young ladies naked.
From the waist down, one of the victim was gunshot
down in the lower parts of everybody.
So there was a very clear difference between the way
the male bodies were found and the women's bodies were
found.
Definitely yes. Was it clear to you that they had
been raped?
Definitely what they did to.
These ladies from the waist down,
it's not only rape. Israeli investigators tell CBS News the
priority after the October 7th attack was identifying the victims
so they did not collect forensic evidence of sexual assault.
But they say there are eyewitness accounts,
photos, interrogation statements and circumstantial evidence pointing to sexual attacks.
A supervisor with a search and recovery team in charge
of collecting the bodies showed us some of the injuries
he says he saw and documented,
including women whose bodies had lacerations,
stabbings and gunshots to their genital area.
The bodies were then taken to an Army base,
which served as a morgue where IDF volunteer Shari Mendez
says she handled the bodies of women.
They were shot in the breast and we saw a
lot of women came in,
sometimes just in underwear. The underwear was very bloody.
An IDF medic, who did not want to be identified,
described what he says he found in a kibbutz,
the one on the floor.
Her legs are wide open and she was shot at
at the backside of her head,
and her pants are pulled down and there's a pile
of semen on the lower part of her back.
In a statement, Hamas said we categorically reject false allegations
of rape,
calling it misleading propaganda. Other militant groups and criminal organizations
also took part in the attacks.
What was the message you read?
I think every one of those cases?
Struck me as just being a terrible message of hatred.
Investigators say most of the victims of sexual violence in
the attacks did not survive to tell their stories.
Lilia Luciano, CBS News, London.