The first male rape survivor of the October 7 Nova festival attack to speak out about the ordeal has described the horror he had to endure.
The man, who is only named by his initial D, shockingly told Israeli Channel 12 news that his assailants were pinning him to the floor after they attacked the music festival he attended in the desert in south Israel.
‘You try to resist, and they take off your clothes, laugh at you, humiliate you, spit on you, touch your [private] parts, and rape you,’ he said as he spoke out about the attack for the first time.
He said that he was trying to flee the Hamas attack, but fighters from the terror group’s elite Nukhba unit caught him.
‘There’s a circle, they’re laughing, and you don’t know what to do at that moment, whether to resist or let it pass, how to deal with the situation. It was a very brutal rape,’ D said in the interview on the horrifying ordeal.
File image of festivalgoers fleeing as Hamas gunmen storm the Nova music festival on October 7 last year
Charred and damaged cars along a desert road after an attack by Hamas militants at the Tribe of Nova Trance music festival near Kibbutz Re’im in southern Israel on Saturday, October 7
Footage showed revellers at Nova festival dancing to the music as Hamas fighters used paragliders to launch their attack
He said his attackers only stopped when more Hamas fighters arrived and called for them. D described his assailants as being ‘wildly intoxicated’ as they were celebrating and laughing while waving their guns and knives.
He said while he tried to disconnect from the rape, he also experienced it ‘very strongly’, adding that it was ‘very difficult’.
D managed to miraculously escape when Israel forces showed up, which forced the Hamas terrorists to retreat to Gaza. Other victims of sexual assaults on October 7 were killed before they could speak about the horrors they had to go through.
‘At first, I shut down a lot; I was a lot less active,’ D told Channel 12, adding that he developed obsessive tendencies like showering over and over again ‘to wash off’ what happened.
He also said that horrifying memories of the rape would resurface during conversations with other people.
D’s report of the rape as been handed to an Israeli police unit investigation sexual assaults committed by Hamas fighters on October 7.
He was also part of a dozen survivors filing a lawsuit against the state of Israel earlier this year, in which the claimants ask for more than £100million from their government.
Lawyers representing the group of survivors said that they feel abandoned by the state and that many of the Nova festival attendees can’t return to work because of what they experienced on October 7.
It comes after a report claimed in February that Hamas terrorists raped and mutilated Israeli civilians, leaving an ‘apocalypse of bodies’ which were missing limbs at the site of the Nova music festival.
Destroyed cars and personal items are still left scattered around the festival site, pictured on October 13
An Israeli soldier stands over the body of a Hamas militant in Kibbutz Be’eri on Wednesday, October 11, 2023
The kindergarten in Be’eri which appeared to be a site of clashes when Hamas gunmen swept the kibbutz on October 7, 2023
The horrific report details ‘sadistic’ crimes alleged to have occurred at the festival, in surrounding villages, on IDF bases and in captivity in Gaza.
It describes the violence endured by men and women, some of whom were allegedly killed while they were being brutalised, as others were made to watch the sexual abuse of their friends and family members before being murdered.
The chilling report from the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel was presented to the UN Special Envoy on Sexual Violence in Conflict Areas, who visited Israel in early February to hear testimonies of sexual abuse.
An overview of the findings states: ‘Hamas terrorists employed sadistic practices aimed at intensifying the degree of humiliation and terror inherent in sexual violence.
‘Many of the bodies of sexual crime victims were found bound and shackled.
‘The genitals of both women and men were brutally mutilated, and sometimes weapons were inserted into them. The terrorists did not stop at shooting, they also cut and mutilated sexual organs and other body parts with knives.’
The testimonies included claims Hamas gunmen repeatedly stabbed an injured woman while they raped her; that victims had nails, grenades and knives inserted into their sexual organs; and how survivors fleeing the festival witnessed ‘girls whose pelvises were simply broken from being raped so much’.
The report concluded Hamas insurgents operated systematically to target both women and men in villages and kibbutzim during the assault, executing victims during or after instigating sexual abuse.
Orit Sulitzeanu, CEO of ARCCI, claimed partners, family and friends were forced to watch horrific acts performed often in groups to ‘increase the pain and humiliation for all present’.
Hamas’s October 7 terror attack on Israel did involve rape and sexual violence, a report from the United Nations has concluded. Pictured: An Israeli soldier walks through items left by fleeing festival goers at the site of the Nova music festival, October 12, 2023
Destroyed cars and belongings left at the Supernova Music Festival site where hundreds were killed and dozens taken by Hamas militants near the border with Gaza, on October 12, 2023
The ARCCI report, looking at documented cases of abuse on and since October 7, concluded that Hamas’ attack ‘included violent acts of rape, accompanied by threats with weapons, and in some cases targeted towards injured women’.
The authors noted that rape was ‘often’ perpetrated in front of an audience, including partners, families or friends, in order to ‘increase the pain and humiliation of all present’.
Meanwhile a UN report, published in March, said that there was ‘clear and convincing’ information to show conflict-related sexual violence was committed by members of Hamas – including rape and gang rape- on October 7.
The UN said such attacks were carried out in at least three locations across southern Israel, including the Nova music festival, the site of one of several October 7 massacres.
Pramila Patten, the UN envoy focusing on sexual violence in conflict, also detailed witness accounts of two incidents involving the rape of women’s corpses.
This evidence to support the report was based on first-hand accounts of released hostages, she said, adding there are ‘reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing’.
Hamas killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, during their October 7 attack on southern Israel, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 44 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,090 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
