WASHINGTON, D.C. — On the two-year anniversary of the devastating October 7, 2023 attacks on Israeli women and girls by Hamas terrorists, Independent Women’s Center for American Safety and Security urges the West to stand up against such atrocities to safeguard women and girls’ safety and security around the world.
As ongoing talks on Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan mark the closest Israel and Hamas have been to a deal in two years, Independent Women recounts the horror of the Hamas-led attacks two years ago and the ongoing psychological warfare being waged as Hamas continues to hold hostages and publicize their grim condition.
“October 7 was a day of unspeakable evil. The entire world witnessed the deliberate slaughter of families, the rape of women, and the kidnapping of innocents. It was hatred made manifest, carried out by Hamas in the name of annihilation,” said Meaghan Mobbs, director of Independent Women’s Center for American Safety and Security. “But the horror did not end there. In the silence, equivocation, and moral relativism that followed, we saw something else revealed—the deep sickness within the West itself.
“The resurgence of antisemitism in our streets, our universities, and even our institutions of diplomacy is the canary in the coal mine,” added Mobbs. “It signals a civilization losing its moral confidence, unable or unwilling to distinguish between good and evil. Multilateral bodies once created to defend peace now twist themselves into apologists for terror, proving that process without principle is paralysis.”
Mobbs said this anniversary must be a turning point. “We cannot reason with barbarism. We must confront it with moral clarity, courage, and a renewed defense of the values that make the West worth saving.”
As an American Muslim human rights observer, academic physician, and senior fellow for Independent Women, Dr. Qanta Ahmed arrived in Israel approximately just over a week after the atrocities to document the genocidal assault by Hamas on Jews and others— both Israelis and citizens of dozens of other nations.
“I will never forget the barbarity of the Hamas atrocities committed on October 7,” said Dr. Ahmed. “On the second anniversary of that appalling day, my thoughts are with the families of the hostages held captive and still in captivity; those who lost their lives in captivity, and those who are seeking to rebuild them after captivity. The United States will support every effort to bring justice and accountability to the Islamist perpetrators of this heinous assault against mankind. As a senior fellow at Independent Women, I support all of the efforts of the Trump administration to hold perpetrators to account and bring a lasting peace.”
“Hamas and a shocking number of Gazan ‘civilians’ committed the most horrific and unspeakable torture and sexual atrocities against Israeli women and girls on October 7, 2023. I have seen the documentation first-hand and those horrific images of pure evil will forever impact me,” said Independent Women senior fellow Ellie Cohanim. “We will always remember the victims of Hamas. I will forever speak out against the use of sexual violence for the war crime that is. We must never tolerate such evil.”
“There needs to be accountability for the murders, mass rapes, and violence committed. Justice must be delivered and hostages must be released. This needs to happen now,” said Andi Bottner, vice president of external relations at Independent Women and former director of the International Women’s Issues Office at the U.S. Department of State.
Today, Independent Women’s Center for American Safety and Security will be releasing a groundbreaking report that will expose how women suffer most when leaders blur right and wrong, weaken deterrence, and elevate empathy for offenders over justice for victims—as seen by the global silence that followed after the atrocities committed against Israeli women and girls by Hamas.
Six months following the October 7th attacks, on May 7, 2024, Independent Women released its “Where are the #BringBackOurGirls voices now?” video and Our Girls petition campaign to bring attention to not only the ongoing silence, but also the hypocrisy of prominent #BringBackOurGirls supporters.
On the one year anniversary of October 7th, Independent Women sent a letter to the Biden-Harris administration to remind them of the horrors of the Hamas-led attacks which included premeditated murder, mass rape, and violent sexual assault. The letter also called attention to the impact of U.S. foreign aid, which, during the Biden-Harris administration, was being funneled to support regimes like Hamas that embrace terror.
See more work from Independent Women calling out the violence against women and girls on October 7th and the world’s deafening silence:
- Last year, Meaghan Mobbs penned an op-ed for Fox News about the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack titled, “On Oct. 7 anniversary, we remember this betrayal of silence.”
- Shortly after the attacks in 2023 Senior fellow Dr. Qanta Ahmed penned an op-ed for the Washington Post titled, “Two months later, Hamas’s Oct. 7 horror cannot be allowed to fade.”
- In an op-ed penned for the Wall Street Journal, Dr. Qanta Ahmed writes about her time in Israel as a human rights observer, titled “The Scenes of Genocide I Saw in Israeli Morgues.”
- Two Truths And A Lie: Anniversary of October 7, 2023 Massacre
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