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Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy On the sexual violence of October 7

May 19

40 mins

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Episode Description

Two and a half years after October 7th, the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children has published its comprehensive report — 300 pages of meticulously corroborated evidence documenting what was done to women, men, children, and hostages on that day and in captivity since. This week, Yonit and Jonathan speak with Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the founder and chair of the Commission, 2024 Israel Prize laureate, and expert in international law and human rights — the woman who spent more than two years immersed in 10,000 photographs and videos and 430 testimonies so the world could not look away.

They discuss what the evidence reveals about the scale and calculated nature of the atrocities, why so many feminist organisations around the world fell silent, the new legal concept of “kinocide” that the Commission had to coin because no existing term could capture what had happened to families — and what it means that the person who stared deepest into this abyss still believes in peace.

Watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpNOrhqCJ6E

00:00 Introduction

00:43 The scale and scope of the evidence

02:55 The 13 documented patterns of abuse

06:18 What Hamas intended — terrorizing a nation for generations

09:15 How the evidence points to deliberate strategy, not random violence

10:50 Coining “kinocide” — when existing legal language wasn’t enough

14:21 Destroying family bonds: the most intimate atrocities

16:26 Gathering evidence when so much was destroyed and victims were silenced

19:39 Institutional denial — UN Women, Judith Butler, and feminist silence

22:30 Why colleagues looked away: antisemitism and dehumanization

24:38 The report as legal and historical document