What I Learned Cataloging the Sexual Violence of October 7

For over two years, the world has been subjected to an undignified debate over whether there even was any sexual violence during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Doubt was poured onto those who had clearly and obviously suffered unspeakable tragedy. The furor and implausible skepticism about an event that was in horrifyingly large part documented in real time by its perpetrators, using live feed cameras, carried the familiar undertone reserved for both crimes of sexual violence and Israeli victims: uncertainty and doubt.

Now, after more than two years of meticulous investigation drawn from survivor testimony, witness accounts, forensic analysis, visual materials, and the preservation of evidence in a secure archive, the record is no longer fragmentary. It is painfully established.