ZAKA testimonies examined; no signs of sexual assault on Oct. 7: AP

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Associated Press
22 May 2024 22:35
18 Shares

The widely debunked Hamas rape fabrication gets negated further, this time by the Associated Press.

Tents, debris, and a burned-out van are scattered about the site of a music festival near the border with the Gaza Strip in southern occupied Palestine on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023 (AP)

When Hamas launched Operation Al Aqsa Flood on October 7, "Israel" fabricated claims of Resistance fighters sexually assaulting Israeli women at the site of the music festival to hoard international support for its genocide.

Since then, the occupation's disturbing attempt to publicly scrutinize the Resistance by falsely accusing its fighters raping settler women has been debunked multiple times.

"Israel's" allegations heavily relied on testimonies brought forth by ZAKA, an Israeli rescue group that submitted a report to the UN regarding the false rape accusations from October 7. It was then revealed that ZAKA's founder himself, Meshi-Zahav, was convicted of rape and of exploiting his power to sexually assault young girls.

The Associated Press, in this context, examined the testimonies of two ZAKA volunteers and found that they have been misleading the global public into thinking Hamas sexually assaulted Israelis on October 7.

False testimonies

AP relayed the testimony of Chaim Otmazgin, a ZAKA volunteer who collected bodies after the operation. Otmazgin's testimony relied on an "interpretation of sexual abuse" rather than evidence.

Reportedly, Otmazgin found the body of an Israeli teenager, but her pants were pulled down, and automatically assumed that she was raped. When he told lawmakers and reporters about what he had seen, he asked for their interpretations. However, the volunteer now claims he never said she was sexually assaulted, although AP found that his testimony greatly alluded to that.

Three months after the testimony, ZAKA reported that Otmazgin's interpretation was wrong, and found that a group of Israeli soldiers "had dragged the girl’s body across the room to make sure she was not booby-trapped", which is why her pants were down.

Another testimony came from Yossi Landau, who claimed he saw a pregnant woman whose fetus was still attached to her umbilical cord, but outside her body. Landau reportedly called Otmazgin at the sight, but the latter negated his testimony himself.

According to Otmazgin, what he saw was a heavy woman and an unidentifiable lump that was attached to an electric cord. However, Landau still deliberately told global media what he had falsely seen.

The chaos that deceived the public

Following the events of October 7, "Israel's" standard protocol for such attacks could not be employed because of its magnitude and unexpectedness. Therefore, the occupation employed its forces in two concentrated settlements, Sderot and Ofakim, and neglected the site of the festival.

Forensic experts who were deployed after were spread thin over the festival location. However, the group responsible for gathering the settlers' bodies was made up of 3,000 mostly Orthodox Jewish volunteer workers, who were not qualified to determine if any sexual assault instance had happened. Moreover, they were tasked with separating settlers from Hamas fighters who had been martyred during the operation, therefore not looking for signs of alleged sexual assault.

Moreover, when reporters interviewed ZAKA volunteers, the regular protocol was dismissed, which allowed unqualified volunteers to give their testimonies without consulting with the official spokesperson.

Consequently, they relayed what they saw, knowing fully well that they were not forensic workers able to identify signs of sexual abuse, rendering their accounts unreliable, and subsequently false.

Food blogger, Israeli film director scripted Hamas rape story for NYT

Previously, the New York Times, which deliberately promoted the false claims of Hamas sexually abusing Israeli settlers on October 7, was debunked several times through extensive analysis of the background of the authors of its infamous article accusing the Resistance of such acts.

Aside from entrusting unqualified authors, an Israeli film director, and a fresh graduate, to lead its most incriminating piece of false information, internal editors then revealed that the story had been rushed and was not thoroughly researched or analyzed.

Moreover, the family of a key figure in the NYT's story, asserted that reporters manipulated their statements, Press TV reported, citing Israeli media.

One day following the publication of the report, the Israeli news site Ynet interviewed Gal's parents. They emphasized the absence of evidence supporting the claim that she was raped, asserting that the newspaper's reporters had interviewed them under false pretenses. The parents stated that they were unaware of the sexual assault issue until the article in the American Daily was published. Additionally, Gal's sisters vehemently refuted the allegations of rape.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Israeli police are finding paramount difficulty locating and finding any Israeli settlers who were victims of sexual assaults or witnesses of such acts allegedly committed by the Hamas Resistance movement during their October 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.