Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine), 08.02.2024
Today Ynet relying on the short memory of its readers published a fake news about Gal Abadosh that allegedly was raped before she was killed.
It is clear to anybody who carefully reads the article that this is another manipulation of the facts in order to shock the readers and the story of the rape has been implemented in the heads of the family of Gal. Or they were told to lie for the good of the state. Rape is a very serious crime but fake news about rape to justify genocide is a war crime and this is the case with the Zionists. According to this story in Ynet and I translated all of it from Hebrew:
“One of the victims of Hamas’ sexual violence on October 7 is Gal Abdush, who was raped after the nature party and murdered with her husband Naji. She was identified due to her black dress, and her family learned that she had been raped following the “New York Times” investigation. Gal’s horror to Ynet: “It’s important that the world knows about the sexual assaults committed by these monsters, that they don’t close their eyes.” Her brother: “I can’t get the image of my sister out of my head”
The face behind the “woman in the black dress’ ‘: on the night between October 6 and 7, Gal and Naji Abdosh from Kiryat Ekron left their two children with Gal’s parents, and went out to spend time at the nature party in Ra’im. The New York Times investigation revealed that Gal was raped by Hamas terrorists before she was murdered along with her husband, when the two tried to escape on Route 232 from the murderous attack by Hamas terrorists.
Last night, Eden Vesli, who photographed Gal after she was murdered, told Ynet about the horrors she saw when she came to look for her friend: “There were very terrible sights, hundreds of bodies, things that the human eye cannot see.” Gal’s relatives were among those who responded to Aden, after the post in which she detailed about that “woman in a black dress that can’t get out of my head” – and then asked if it was her.
Eti Bracha, Gal’s mother, told Ynet about the difficult feelings: “I heard about the rape my daughter went through before she was murdered. It was a chilling and painful moment, I even felt ashamed, even though she did nothing. Monsters murdered her.” The mother painfully added: “This is how they desecrated her soul and mind before they murdered her and her husband, and left two orphans aged 7 and 11.”
The mother said that Gal was raped and murdered in front of her husband, who was also murdered in the end. “It’s important to me and the people of Israel that the world knows about the sexual assaults committed by these monsters, that they don’t close their eyes and say they don’t believe it really happened,” Bracha said. “There are witnesses who saw the sexual assault of my daughter.”
According to the mother, she was only exposed to the sexual assaults during the investigation: “We didn’t know about the rape at first, we only knew when the New York Times reporter contacted us. They said they cross-examined the evidence and said that Gal had been sexually assaulted. Until now we don’t know what exactly happened.”, added the mother.
Eden Wesley describes the difficult sights she saw while looking for her friend Amit Buskila, who went missing after the party in Reim
Eden Wesley’s post: “I can’t get the woman in the black dress out of my head”
Naji’s mother is also shocked by the harsh evidence: “This is my daughter-in-law, what I hear is shocking. What she went through before they shot her and murdered them, how painful, how sad. That morning my son Naji called us and said, ‘They killed her, They shot her,’ and screamed into the phone that was on loudspeaker. Only now, after hearing what they did to Gal, I’m trying to think what my son saw with his eyes, how his wife was being sexually assaulted, before she was shot and then he was shot.”
A few hours before the couple were murdered by Hamas terrorists, they and their two children celebrated Simchat Torah with Gal’s parents and her brother Rami Bracha, who got married just a week before. Rami recalled that around 2:30 Gal and Naji went to the party. They left the children with Gal’s mother in Kiryat Ekron. The children are constantly asking about father and mother. It is very difficult for them and they are sad,” said Gal’s mother. “The older son even insisted on watching the movie ‘Nova’, where they showed all the videos of the party where his parents were murdered.”
Brother Rami Bracha said that a few hours after the massacre, he recognized his sister Gal, in a video entitled “The Woman in the Black Dress”, but he did not know that she had been raped.
Rami: “I recognized the dress and I knew it was my sister, because I saw her before she went to the party. The image of my sister can’t get out of my head to this day. The next day we went to the police station to report her missing. I said that based on the clothing in the published photo, it was my sister. At first I didn’t understand that she was Murdered, only when we got to the police, and the kind investigator got to the person who published the photo I recognized, the woman sent her all the photos. Then we realized that something unusual had happened, and my sister was also not alive.
Rami: “I recognized the dress and I knew it was my sister, because I saw her before she went to the party. The image of my sister can’t get out of my head to this day. The next day we went to the police station to report her missing. I said that based on the clothing in the published photo, it was my sister. At first I didn’t understand that she was murdered, only when we got to the police, and the kind investigator got to the person who published the photo that I recognized, the woman sent her all the photos. That’s when we realized that something unusual had happened, and my sister was also not alive. I couldn’t look at the photos, my wife did.”
The video was published on October 8, and already that day it went viral. He also earned the name “The Woman in the Black Dress”. According to him, “It was only in the New York Times investigation that we understood from the journalists that my sister had been raped.
Nine days after Gal was murdered and declared missing, Abdosh’s body was identified, and the next day it was laid to rest in the cemetery in Kiryat Ekron. The body of her husband Naji was identified a few days later, and he was laid to rest next to his wife” [1]
In real history according to investigating reporters from mondoweiss, “on December 28, the New York Times published an “investigative” report on gender-based violence allegedly committed by Palestinians during the October 7 attack. The newspaper says the story was based on over 150 interviews conducted by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, along with Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella. The story concludes that Hamas fighters engaged in systematic rape and sexual violence against Israeli women.
The story itself repeats October 7 testimonies that have been previously published and already debunked and discredited, but the Times investigation hinges predominantly on one central story, the story of the rape of “Gal Abdush,” who is described by the Times as “The Woman in the Black Dress.”
Although claiming its story proves that “the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7” the veracity of the New York Times story was undermined almost as soon as it was published, including from the Abdush family itself who says there is no proof Gal Abdush was raped and that the New York Times interviewed them under false pretenses.
The New York Times version of events
A heartbreaking photo of Gal Abdush’s family — a working-class Mizrahi Jewish family who lost their daughter and son-in-law, Nagi Abdush — appeared on the newspaper’s cover. The newspaper devoted a third of its report to the Abdush story. The report centered around a video that was captured on October 8 by a woman called Eden Wessely, which was published on her social media accounts. According to the Times, “The video went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress was their missing friend, sister or daughter.” The newspaper did not link to the video but released a distant, indistinct image from it that revealed nothing. It’s unclear how the Times confirmed the existence of these responses since Wessely’s Instagram account has been banned, and she created a new account in mid-December.
The newspaper narrates the tragedy of the family, how they learned about their daughter’s fate, and how the video and their daughter became known as “the woman in the black dress.” The Times states that her husband, Nagi Abdush, who was also killed, sent his last message at precisely 7:44 a.m., asking the family to take care of their children. What the newspaper omitted, and the family later confirmed, is that the husband contacted them at 7:00 a.m. and reported his wife’s death.
The Times says the family saw the video recording and “feared that she might have been raped” based on the body’s condition. The Times also states that the Israeli police used the video as evidence that rape occurred: “The videos caught the eye of Israeli officials as well — very quickly after Oct. 7 they began gathering evidence of atrocities. They included footage of Ms. Abdush’s body in a presentation made to foreign governments and media organizations, using Ms. Abdush as a representation of violence committed against women that day.”
There is currently no trace of the video on the internet despite the Times claim that it “went viral.” Moreover, the Israeli press, despite reporting on hundreds of stories about the October 7 victims, never mentioned “the woman in the black dress” even once previous to the December 28 story. It does not appear that the video had, in fact, become the widely circulated symbol the Times claimed it had. But regardless, within a day of the report being published, facts that undermined the Times story began to emerge.
‘The media invented it’
On December 29, the Israeli website ‘YNET’ published an interview with Etti Brakha, Gal Abdush’s mother. In the interview, the mother says that the family knew nothing about the sexual assault issue until the piece in the Times was published: “We didn’t know about the rape at all. We only knew after a New York Times journalist contacted us. They said they matched evidence and concluded that she had been sexually assaulted.”
Then, on January 1, Nissim Abdush, Nagi’s brother, appeared in an interview on Israeli Channel 13. During the 14-minute interview, Nissim repeatedly denied that his sister-in-law was raped. He explained that his brother Nagi had called him at 7:00 in the morning, saying his wife was killed, and he was next to her body. Then, he continued to communicate until 7:44 and never mentioned anything related to sexual assault. Nissim also stated that no official party informed them of these doubts or this investigation, nor the police nor forensic experts. In the interview, Abdush reiterated that his brother’s wife was not raped and that “the media invented it.”
Gal’s sisters also denied allegations of rape. Her sister, Tali Barakha, posted on Instagram, “No one can know what Gal went through there! Also, what Nagi went through, but I can’t cooperate with those who say many things that are not true. I plead with you to stop spreading lies, there is a family and children behind them, no one can know if there was rape or if she was burned while alive. Have you gone mad? I spoke to Nagi personally! At 7 o’clock, Gal was killed by those animals, and they shot her in the heart. Nagi was alive until quarter past eight…”
Likewise, Moral Altar, Gals’ sister, wrote a comment on Instagram in response to a video of a hasbara account. Altar said, “I can’t understand all these reports. There were many difficult stories, why this story in particular? It’s based on only one video published without the family’s knowledge…It is true that the scenes in the video are not easy, but it’s clear that the dress is lifted upwards and not in its natural state, and half her head is burned because they threw a grenade at the car. I don’t want to be understood as if I’m justifying what they did; they are animals, they raped and beheaded people, but in my sister’s case, this is not true. At 6:51, Gal sent us a message on WhatsApp saying ‘we are at the border, and you can’t imagine sounds of explosions around us.’ At 7 o’clock, my brother-in-law called his brother and said they shot Gal and she’s dying. It doesn’t make any sense that in four minutes, they raped her, slaughtered her, and burned her?”
Other comments from Abdush family friends and relatives (whose relationships have been confirmed through social media connections) also suggest that the “Woman in the Black Dress” video itself lacks enough information to support the claim of rape.
Shiran Maluka, Miral’s friend, wrote: “Based on what does Eden Wessely conclude that she was raped? Based on the video she took, there is no evidence, it’s not true that half of her body was burned, only her face, and there is nothing but a dress pulled up.” Another friend, Almog Peretz Hemo, wrote a similar comment.
Many of the comments from those in and around the Abdush family point to the role of Eden Wessely in pushing the rape allegations. Although Wessely’s quotes in the Times didn’t contain a graphic description, her following statements to the Israeli media were very explicit and clearly stated that Abdush was raped, burned, and murdered. Those pushed back on the story seem to believe that it was, in fact, Eden Wessely’s testimony and personal interpretation that initially raised these allegations of sexual violence rather than the video itself. They argue that Wessely’s testimony is inaccurate, and does not match with what’s seen in the video.
A look at Eden Wessely’s Facebook account reveals extreme right-wing opinions.
For example, in the early days of the war, Wessely posted fake news, debunked by the Israeli media, about “Israeli traitors who supported Hamas fighters during the attack on October 7th.” Wessely also shared many posts by the extreme right-wing organization, Im Tirtzu, and posts by the far-right rapper, Hatzel, considered a symbol of Israeli fascist racism. In another post, Wessely shared a picture of the Israeli human rights lawyer Lea Tsemel, calling her “the devil incarnate.”
Weaponizing ‘the woman in the black dress’
The family’s testimonies unmistakably confirm that the Israeli authorities did not have the decency to inform the family about the investigation into their family member’s rape. But, three months following her death, Israeli authorities and the Israeli police are weaponizing her case and using the death of Gal Abdush as propaganda material to garner support for and justify the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Likewise, the New York Times also joined in exploiting the family in a highly unethical manner. Despite mentioning the element of rape to the family, the Times reporters did not make clear this was the focus of the story and evidently got them to agree to participate by saying they wanted to cover the family’s tragedy. According to Abdush’s sister, Miral Alter, this is why the family agreed to speak to the reporter. As Alter explains in the Instagram comment above, the Times reporters “mentioned they want to write a report in memory of Gal, and that’s it. If we knew that the title would be about rape and butchery, we’d never accept that.”
In the end, it appears that the New York Times manipulated a working-class Mizrahi family in the service of Israeli hasbara in order to score a journalistic achievement, which in reality is nothing more than a repetition of fake news and government propaganda. [2]
Do not believe one word the Zionist say!
Down with the Zionist war criminals!
For Palestine red and free from the river to the sea!
Endnotes:
[1] https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/hyfwvej006
[2] https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/family-of-key-case-in-new-york-times-october-7-sexual-violence-report-renounces-story-says-reporters-manipulated-them/