Content warning: This article includes mentions of rape.

On March 10, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute hosted its annual Diane Markowicz Memorial Lecture on Gender and Human Rights, featuring Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy. The lecture, titled “War Crimes Redefined: The Oct. 7 Attack by Hamas on Women, Children and Families,” centered on Elkayam-Levy’s expertise in international law and human rights and her experience as a founder of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children. 

Elkayam-Levy began her lecture by quoting Catharine MacKinnon, American feminist legal scholar, activist and author: “Human rights have not been women’s rights — not in theory or in reality, not legally or socially, not domestically or internationally. Rights that human beings have by virtue of being human have not been rights to which women have had access, nor have violations of women as such been part of the definition of the violation of the human as such on which human rights law has traditionally been predicated.” Elkayam-Levy emphasized that the values and ideals enshrined in international human rights discourse does not encapsulate the realities and experiences of women, especially during times of conflict. 

“Coming from Israel, I can say in the midst of atrocities, international law seems meaningless,” said Elkayam-Levy. “It seems so far from our realities that it’s even painful in many ways.” 

As the Oct. 7, 2023 war between Israel and Hamas continues, more and more questions, criticism and discussion regarding the potential international human rights laws being violated by both sides began to be raised. Sparked by what she had seen on Oct. 7 and the legacy of the Holocaust, Elkayam-Levy was the principal author of the National Report on Gender Mainstreaming in Times of Emergencies, which she describes to have “Revealed the depth of women's exclusion from the decision making process.” Elkayam-Levy elaborated that women's voices are being left out of important decision making circles, “which time determine the life and death of all of us.” In June of 2022, the Israeli government adopted the report.

During her lecture, Elkayam-Levy shared a personal anecdote of the days before and following Oct. 7, where her father was in the hospital. While visiting her father, reports began pouring in reflecting the effect of the initial Oct. 7 conflict. “In the very first days … I personally didn’t realize that there is going to be an issue with the international community,” Elkayam-Levy remembered. “I didn’t think that we were going to see the kind of dynamics that we saw after the seventh of October.”

Elkayam-Levy became dissatisfied with the lack of response from international human rights organizations. Along with other women and experts of international law, she founded the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children that the HBI describes as “an independent, non-governmental collaboration of international human rights experts and women's rights organizations created to advocate for and support the investigation of war crimes committed by Hamas against women and children during the massacre of the seventh of October 2023.” 

Elkayam-Levy claimed that with what she and her colleague were able to collect, they have shared the information to every United Nations agency that is involved with women’s and children’s rights. To her dismay, no agency responded. “For days, for weeks we waited. We sent them again and more and more information … It was kind of a sad experience to know that we were struggling for them to just respond to what happened,” Elkayam-Levy said. Elkayam-Levy was hoping that the response would have included initial reporting of the situation at hand, expressed solidarity with the victims, condemned the crime and offered help in amplifying the victims voices. 

On Oct. 31, Elkayam-Levy was invited to speak to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. According to Elkayam-Levy, nothing much came of her talk with the U.N. “I want to say their silence has implications,” said Elkayam-Levy. 

“It is dehumanizing. I think the haunting question that kept repeating in my head for weeks later is ‘are we Israeli women even human?’ With lack of satisfying results, Elkayam-Levy and her colleagues ended efforts in communicating with international organizations and instead continued their work in documenting incidents of human rights violation against women. 

“I told [colleagues] we have a historical mission to document and collect every piece of information regarding what happened to women,” Elkayam-Levy said. “I began to understand that we have a role in keeping every information we got, every report, and I knew this was our only chance to keep a historical record of what happened.” 

Beyond international human rights with respect to gender, Elkayam-Levy briefly worked to redefine international human rights laws to include children and families. “The targeting of family is a new practice that should really concern us all,” Elkayam-Levy shared. “It is a news practice that redefines crimes against humanity and requires our most urgent action.”

After Elkayam-Levy’s lecture, there was an Q&A portion to the event, which was moderated by Lisa Fishbayn Joffe, the Shulamit Reinharz Director of HBI. 

An audience member, who identifies as Israeli, challenged Elkayam-Levy by adding to the discussion that they believe that “the crimes against humanity of Oct. 7, should not be weaponized as saying ‘We have the right to conduct this war.’” 

“I completely agree,” Elkayam-Levy responded. “I think the human suffering that we are seeing is putting us in an impossible situation. The suffering we are seeing on both sides of the border is intolerable. It must be recognized, it must be understood on both sides … I think we have to talk about what is happening in Gaza.”

Joffe followed up asking if there is any collaboration between the work that Elkayam-Levy does with people who are tracking sexual violence against Palestinian women. 

Elkayam-Levy responded by discussing how she and her colleagues use accounts from first responders, morgue staff and survivors in collective information. It is unclear to The Justice if those same method of data collection is used to collect information on sexual violence against Palestinian women. She elaborated, “This is something that needs to be addressed. This needs to be addressed by the IDF. It needs to be addressed by civil society. There are also academics in Israel that are raising their voice against it and I wanna say this has to be investigated by the IDF and government.” 

“Justice begins with recognition,” Elkayam-Levy said. “Justice begins with the ability to acknowledge what happens to the victims and also healing being with recognition.” In reflecting on how to start moving forward, Elkayam-Levy sees the value of recognition and sees this as an important first step in the potential for conflict resolution.