Violence against women as a weapon of war is everywhere but many do not live to tell their stories

Allegations of sexual violence after the Hamas attack are nothing new says Bible scholar Elaine Storkey, and Christians need to speak up about this ruthless inhumanity.

As soon as we heard about the attack by Hamas on young people at a musical event, along with the murder and kidnapping of Israelis in their homes, I was pretty sure that atrocities against women would have been part of the terror inflicted. I had spent seven years researching violence against women for a book (Scars Across Humanity) and rape as a weapon of war cropped up everywhere in my findings. I had seen the effects of torture and sexual brutality on women and girls in Congo and witnessed their struggle to live with trauma. I had listened to stories of viciousness and cruelty from surviving ‘comfort women’ in South Korea, now elderly but with bodies still impacted by the sexual violence of Japanese soldiers. It seemed to me to be without question that Hamas terrorists, already shown on film pulling women along by their hair, would also be raping and violating their bodies.