‘I don’t respond to them; there won’t be an end to it. No matter what, we are Jews, and we’ll be hated no matter what we say.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Raz Cohen who escaped from the Nova music festival on October 7th and witnessed a gang rape and murder committed by Hamas reports that he has been attacked on social media and called a liar for his public testimony, as reported by Ynet.
Cohen described the incident to CNN journalist Jake Tapper and The New York Times reported on Cohen’s testimony.
He reports, “I’ve received endless antisemitic comments. Many messages on Instagram and calls from abroad in which people called me a liar.”
Cohen added, “I don’t respond to them; there won’t be an end to it. No matter what, we are Jews, and we’ll be hated no matter what we say.”
He also says he’s received positive feedback “from Americans and people all over the world.”
However, he expressed frustration and asked why people who speak out about the rapes perpetrated by Hamas should be criticized at all.
“Why are we being criticized for telling about the rapes? Is it because there’s no documentation, so it means it didn’t happen?”
However, forensic evidence has proved that bodies showed signs of sexual assault, including broken hips, legs, bloodied groins and genital mutilation.
In addition, doctors examining the released hostages reported that many of the hostages, both male and female, had been sexually assaulted.
Raz Cohen witnessed the gang rape of a woman while he was hiding in the bushes.
“About 40 seconds after we arrived at the bush, a white van arrived, from which four or five terrorists emerged,” Raz recounted.
“They caught someone; I don’t know if they pulled her out of the van itself or if they stopped the van close to them. Hiding in the leaves and branches meant I couldn’t see what they did in detail, but when you see rape taking place, you understand that it’s rape.”
Raz Cohen continued, “They took off her pants; the terrorists formed a semi-circle around her, holding her so she wouldn’t move, and one of them made motions akin to those of rape. All of this lasted about a minute, and at some point, one of the terrorists pulled out a knife and stabbed her. I could see she was no longer moving, and then he continued raping her for some time after he had already murdered her.”
Raz Cohen hid in the bushes for 9 hours before he was rescued, and when speaking about his own progress in healing from trauma, he says, “The fact that I survived the attack, just the fact that I’m here and can talk about it, means that I’ve made progress in treating myself. But as long as the country is in this situation and we’re still in a never-ending nightmare, it doesn’t feel like 100 days have passed since then.”