Blinken says sexual violence by Hamas ‘beyond anything that I’ve seen’ as he blasts UN’s slow response

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has blasted the United Nations and other international groups for being too slow to condemn rapes and additional sexual attacks by Hamas terrorists — which he says are “beyond anything that I’ve ever seen.”

“The atrocities that we saw on Oct. 7 are almost beyond description or beyond our capacity to digest,” Blinken said in a Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“And we’ve talked about them before, but the sexual violence that we saw on Oct. 7 is beyond anything that I’ve ever seen, either.”

Blinken said the failure to condemn, and in some cases failure to even believe, the reports of sexual violence is something about which “these organizations, these countries need to ask themselves.”

Blinken was asked whether he thought the UN’s stalled acknowledgment was because of antisemitism.

“I don’t know why countries, leaders, international organizations were so slow to focus on this, to bring it to people’s attention,” Blinken responded. “I’m glad it is finally happening.”

Reports of widespread rape in Israel during Hamas’ attack were first reported last month, when the Physicians for Human Rights Israel published its initial assessment.

“What we know for sure is that it was more than just one case and it was widespread, in that this happened in more than one location and more than a handful of times,” said Hadas Ziv, the group’s policy and ethics director.

One combat medic told The Associated Press how he came across at least a half-dozen bodies of women and men with possible signs of sexual assault.

The bodies had mass bleeding around the groins, he said, with limbs distorted at odd angles.

Israeli police say they are combing through about 60,000 videos seized from terrorists’ body cameras, from social media and from security cameras, as well as 1,000 testimonies, to bring the perpetrators to justice.

But it has been difficult to find the rape survivors, as many were killed afterward.

At first, several lawmakers questioned the reports, and US Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) even called for “balanced” criticism when asked about the rapes.

But House Democrats are planning to introduce a resolution condemning Hamas’ use of rape against Israelis as a weapon of war.

Meanwhile, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it requested access to Israel and the Palestinian territories to allow it to collect information about the events of Oct. 7, but a rep for the agency said Israel has not responded to the requests.

The Jewish nation has previously said the UN has pre-existing biases and that Israel will not cooperate with the body.

Instead, Israeli officials said they will consider all options for independent international groups to investigate.

With Post wires