#dr. cochav elkayam-levy

[eretzyisrael]

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

The bestial crimes carried out by thousands of Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023, were unspeakable – but the authors of a newly released 79-page report want the world to speak about them and spread the word.

Writing for the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, they have even given it a name because at no time in history had this exact type of crime been committed. They called it “kinocide” – the targeting of families, calling it a new crime against humanity.

In preparation since February 2024, the report is authored by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, Dr. Michal Gilad, and Dr. Ilya Rudyak from the civil commission. The Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights (RWCHR), under the leadership of former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler, with whom Elyakim-Levy decided on the term “kinocide.”

The horrific assault in southern Israel resulted in over 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of more than 250 people, including men, women, children, infants, the elderly, and disabled people, all in one day. The heinous acts of murder, torture, gender-based violence, and abduction spurred the immediate formation of the commission.

What is Kinocide?

By coining the term kinocide, the report exposes the deliberate, widespread exploitation and destruction of familial bonds to intensify victims’ suffering, highlighting the profound and lasting harm inflicted on individuals, communities, and societies. She noted that the Dvora Institute calls for urgent international recognition of the term as it describes a new, distinct international crime against humanity and presents legal and policy recommendations to close gaps in international criminal law, ensure accountability, and prevent such atrocities in the future.

GENOCIDE, AS practiced by the Nazis, is directed against a group of people – “national, ethnical, racial or religious,” according to the UN’s 1948 Genocide Convention – but kinocide is a specific type of assault against a group, using the relationship between family members and their emotional, identity, cultural, symbolic, material and other bonds, as a way to maximize the intended harm of the attack.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Elkayam-Levy – a leading international law expert who teaches at Reichman University in Herzliya and who founded and chairs the commission – said that the world must know. This includes government and religious leaders, the UN, parliamentarians, legislators, and members of the Hague International Criminal Court, which has castigated and “tried” in absentia Israeli leaders and threatened them and IDF officers with imprisonment.

She has already presented the report to 300 very influential leaders at the Halifax International Security Forum, an annual summit for international government and military officials, academic experts, authors, and entrepreneurs, held in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The acts of terrorist inhumanity included cutting women in their homes, murdering them, forcing their children to watch or coercing parents to watch what was done to their children, and then sending photos and videos to all the contacts on the victims’ mobile phones. There were 17 minutes of video in which families were murdered at a balloon-and-blood-filled party for a daughter’s 18th birthday.

Elkayam-Levy said that the commission is assembling an archive of videos, texts, photos, and more – many produced by Hamas – to document these crimes, giving a voice to the victims and raising awareness of war crimes committed against women, children, and families. For this work, she was awarded the prestigious 2024 Israel Prize, Israel’s highest civilian honor in the field of Solidarity, topping many other prestigious awards she has received.

The archive, she declared, will serve as a vital resource for research, education, and advocacy, ensuring that the stories of those impacted are preserved, recognized, and remembered for generations to come. “We will bear witness! The murders weren’t random but carried out systematically to create the most vicious effects,” she said.

[beardedmrbean]

In the early hours of October 7, 2023, the Idan family of Kibbutz Nahal Oz was shattered when Hamas terrorists infiltrated their home. As the family tried to take refuge in their safe room, the terrorists murdered their eldest daughter, Maayan, in front of her parents and siblings, and then abducted the father, Tzachi. The scene was broadcast live on social media, forcing the nation to witness their agonizing last moments. 

At the same time, in Kibbutz Holit, 16-year-old Rotem Matias lay hiding under his mother's lifeless body, texting his sisters the heartbreaking news: "Mom and Dad are dead. Sorry."

In Kfar Aza, Roee Idan was killed while holding his 3-year-old daughter, Abigail, as his older children watched in horror. Their mother, Smadar, was also shot before their eyes. Afterward, the children hid in a closet, trapped with their mother’s body, unsure of their younger sister's fate, who was later abducted into Gaza.

ISRAELI POLICE SAY EXTREME SEXUAL VIOLENCE, RAPE BY HAMAS TERRORISTS WAS SYSTEMATIC

These are just a few of the countless stories documented in a new report released on Tuesday, co-authored by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, founder of the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes Against Women and Children, and Dr. Michal Gilad and Dr. Ilya Rudyak. The report introduces the term "kinocide" to describe the systematic targeting and destruction of family units during the attack- an unprecedented atrocity that goes beyond typical warfare.

"A crime without a name for victims without a voice," as Dr. Elkayam-Levy described it. "The perpetrators not only killed but deliberately sought to destroy the very foundation of human society: the family."

"The hardest crimes to witness were those involving families," Dr. Elkayam-Levy continued, "While the Hamas perpetrators celebrated their violence, chanting religious slogans and broadcasting their actions on social media, the terror was not confined to the immediate victims-it was amplified globally."

"The use of social media was crucial in spreading the terror, inspiring similar acts of violence elsewhere," Merav Israeli-Amarant, CEO of the Civil Commission, told Fox News Digital. She referred to this tactic as the "terror theater" a term coined by legal scholar Tehila Schwartz Altshuler, explaining how the broadcasts were designed to radicalize and incite other terrorists.

As Elkayam-Levy and her team dug deeper, they realized that similar tactics have been documented in conflicts across the globe, from Argentina and Iraq to Syria, Sierra Leone and Myanmar. "We’ve been in contact with survivors of kinocide, including Yazidis, who have shared their experiences. The pain is universal. This has happened before, but it never had a name," Dr. Elkayam-Levy said.

In collaboration with the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, the commission worked to identify these patterns of abuse and ensure that kinocide is recognized as a distinct crime. The new report, released after a year of research, includes interviews with survivors, visits to the sites where the atrocities took place, and an extensive review of evidence. The goal is to bring kinocide into international legal discourse, advocating for its urgent need to be recognized as a distinct crime.

'I WILL BE HAUNTED FOREVER’: ISRAEL’S HORRIFIC VIDEO OF HAMAS ATROCITIES LEAVES VIEWERS SHOCKED AND SICKENED

Professor Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice of Canada and International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, stated, "Silence in the face of such evil is not neutrality; it is complicity. Worse still, there has been denial, justification, and even the glorification of these heinous acts, underscoring the moral and legal imperative to act decisively against such crimes. The dangers of antisemitism are not just the oldest and most lethal of hatreds- they are also a presage of global evil, as evidenced by the events of October 7."

"We need an international coalition to address this systematic targeting of families," Elkayam-Levy said. "But international law has failed the survivors of October 7. The current legal frameworks do not adequately protect families in these kinds of attacks."

The report, which has been endorsed by international law experts and human rights activists worldwide, highlights the urgent need for legal and social recognition of kinocide. However, despite the report’s widespread endorsement, Elkayam-Levy expressed her concern over the international community’s response. 

As someone who faced the denial of prominent figures in the international human rights community in response to her last report on sexual violence on Oct. 7, she said, "We live in dark times when international law is weaponized against us (Israelis) in terrifying ways. As an international human rights scholar, I never imagined that we would live in a time when such abuse is directed at us. It really scares me."

[jewish-vents]

I heard the woman in charge of documenting Hamas’ Oct 7 war crimes, Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy, say the international community dismissed and downplayed what Hamas did and it breaks my heart that antisemitism is so systemic that we’re seeing it from the UN to randos on the internet

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[infosisraelnews]

Des femmes et des filles israéliennes ont été violées lors de l'attaque du Hamas. Où est le tollé ?

Le Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy a pris une profonde inspiration après avoir averti le public des horreurs graphiques qu’elle s’apprêtait à raconter. Elle a ensuite décrit quelques-unes des preuves visuelles accablantes qui ont émergé de l’attaque du Hamas contre Israël le 7 octobre : une jeune spectatrice de concert, déshabillée de la taille aux pieds, figée par la rigidité cadavérique dans une…