Warning: The following contains descriptions of sexual violence. Reader discretion advised.
A terrorist from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) admitted to raping an Israeli woman and murdering civilians during the Hamas-led October 7 attack, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) disclosed on Thursday with a video of the interrogation.
“The devil took over me, I laid her down, started undressing her and did what I did,” Manar Mahmoud Muhammad Kasem, a PIJ operative in its naval forces, told the intelligence officer from the IDF’s Unit 504.
Kasem was caught during an IDF operation at Shifa hospital in Gaza, along with hundreds of other PIJ and Hamas terrorists who had retaken the compound and its surrounding believing the Israeli forces were no longer fighting in the area.
During the investigation by the IDF’s Intelligence Directorate, Kasem first described his role in PIJ as well as how he was called to take part in the October 7 attack, from where he breached the fence into Israel, as well as how he was armed with a gun and two grenades, and described in precise detail the atrocities committed.
After another terrorist on his jeep was hit in the head, Kasem said out of fear he entered the Kibbutz and the first house he found, describing how a woman was frightened when she saw him, and while she was calling out for help he threw her on to a sofa and that’s when he said, “The devil took over me.”
When asked what exactly he did, Kasem replied, “I slept with her.” And the IDF intelligence officer asked for a clarification on what he meant, since they did not “sleep.”
“I raped her,” Kasem admitted, saying the woman tried to push him away.
Toward the end of the interrogation, Kasem heard gunshots and attempted to leave the Kibbutz but ran into men on the way that were not in army uniforms and shot at them, hitting at least one who fell to the ground, then he threw one of his grenades.