In an interview at The Jerusalem Post’s Women Leaders Summit 2025, Orit Sulitzeanu, executive director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, said that the right to privacy of the victims of sexual violence on October 7 takes precedence over the country’s interest in learning what was perpetrated by Hamas terrorists.
“The tension between what the country wants and the survivors’ needs is huge. The country wants everybody to stop the denial, and of course, every citizen who lives here wants the denial to cease. But the needs of the country are not as important as the needs of the private person. There is a clear priority,” she said.
Sulitzeanu said that the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, which is the umbrella organization of nine local rape crisis centers throughout the country, receives 56,000 calls annually, which is less than the actual number of acts of sexual violence committed.
Many of these survivors of sexual violence, she said, do not feel comfortable sharing their stories immediately. “We know many survivors, and we know that it takes so long until the stories come out.”
The survivors of the Hamas attacks on October 7, she continued, suffered horrific trauma and abuse, and many of them feel that recounting what was done to them will make them feel triggered and traumatized.
Crimes of sexual violence
“I think that Israeli society and the journalists really understood not to ask more than what was said, because it’s their privacy.”
Sulitzeanu also addressed the fact that numerous other survivors of sexual violence in Israel did not come forward after the events of October 7, because they felt that their suffering was minor compared with those who had been attacked on that day.
“After October 7,” she said, “from that day until October 10, our nine rape crisis centers received very few calls.”
To counter the underreporting of crimes of sexual violence during that time, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel initiated a campaign to raise awareness among survivors to ensure they reported crimes that took place during that period.
“It will take a long time until things are stable here. Every day, people need our rape crisis centers, and we will do our utmost to help them.”
This article was written in cooperation with the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.