How Israel's mass-rape claims started with the lie that people turn to statues when they die
The true story behind "the woman in the black dress"
One of the first claimed evidence of rape on Hamas' October 7 attack, was a video of a body of a woman in a black dress, later identified as Gal Abdush.
WARNING: this article contains uncensored images and videos of unclothed human bodies that were exposed to extreme violence and were severly burnt.
In the video (below), Abdush's body is lying on her back next to car, seemingly with no underwear, hands raised above her face as one would instinctively do when trying to protect himself, knees elevated and legs spread open.
Naturally and with a the silent help of the Israeli establishment, people who do not know how the human body acts after death and especially those who think the worst of Hamas (Israelis), looked at this video and came to the conclusion this woman was raped, murdered and remained frozen in a position that exposed what has been done to her.
How bodies behave
The thing is, when you die you do not freeze in that final position and become a statue documenting the last thing that happened to you, though this would certainly have been useful for crime solving. Immediately after death, the body goes to a state known as primary flaccidity - the complete relaxation of muscles - and the body simply collapses with accordance to gravity.
Rigor mortis or postmortem rigidity - when bodies do partially turn to "statues", due to chemical changes in the muscles - only sets in a few hours after death and lasts for a few hours, until the body's decomposition relaxes the muscles once again.
So, if Abdush was killed while covering her face with her hands in a protective manner, as Israel claims, those hands would not stay there. If Abdush's knees where raised and spread open at the moment of death, because she was supposedly raped in this position, those legs would have collapsed and fall flat on the ground.
In fact, when crime scene investigators find a body in a position such as that of Abdush, they call it "anti-gravitational rigor mortis". This indicates to them that the body was moved after death, exactly because people do not freeze when they die.
How bodies move after death
So how did Abdush arrive at this position? As you can see in the picture below, her body defies gravity with hands and legs elevated. There are a few options for such a position after death.
Abdush could have been sitting inside the car when she died, with her knees bent due to the car seat and her arms in front of her resting on something that created a counter force to gravity (e.g., arms resting on the dashboard or window). Then someone pulled her out of the car when she was already frozen in rigor mortis and so her position on the ground is based on her position in the car.
Another option is that she simply died outside of the car and fell flat on the ground. Rigor mortis does not only freeze the muscles, the chemical reactions cause all of the muscles in the body to contract. As they do, in some cases the contraction will cause the arms to rise up vertically from the ground. Leg muscles might also contract in the same manner, causing the knees to rise as the feet are dragged backwards (see video below, around 0:50).
As rigor mortis subsides gradually, muscles will start to relax. As they do, limbs will fall in different times according to gravity. And so, the bent knees might fall to the sides and spread open. The forearms will start falling downwards slowly as the muscles relax, in a hug-like motion. This combination leads to the position we saw in the body of Abdush.
Another option, which we believe is the likeliest, occurs when the body is exposed to extreme heat. From the look of Abdush’s skin In the close-up picture below, the flames likely did not come in direct contact with Abdush’s body but the heat radiation clearly burnt off her hair and caused severe burns all over her head.
As the water in the body boils, the muscles contract and shrink, causing the limbs to move into what is known as pugilistic attitude, which is known to be mistaken for a pre-death attempt to shield oneself from an attacker.
You can see these bodies look exactly like Abdush due to pugilistic attitude.
In fact, buried in the UN report (see screenshot below) on Israel claims of rapes on October 7th (PDF), is the exact same conclusion that Israel mislabeled the pugilistic attitude as rape victims that turned to statues (And this is not the first time Israel's chief pathologist has been caught lying about October 7th).
So there are a few options as to how Abdush ended up in this position and we can not say for sure which one is true but we can say with certainty which one is not: Abdush did not die in the position she was photographed in. This is simply impossible, as people do not turn to statues when they die.
Though the UN report uses diplomatic language and makes it seem these can be honest mistakes by Israel, in reality no pathologist can make such a mistake. This should not be surprising as the chief pathologist in all countries is also a political position and not just a professional or scientific one. Dr. Chen Kugel, Israel's chief forensic pathologist, also claimed he personally saw "beheaded babies" from the October 7th attack but we later found out only one baby was killed that day and it was not beheaded.
Anti-gravitational rigor mortis means exactly the opposite of the conclusions reached by Israel: Abdush died in some other position or location and therefore, there is no reason to deduce from her her position that she was raped or was raising her arms in a defensive manner when she died.
War makes rare post-mortem positions common
It is true that under normal circumstances, the position Abdush was documented in is rare but its much more common in violent deaths, in bodies that were moved after death, bodies left outside for a long time or bodies exposed to extreme heat — all things that were common on October 7th. Because of this and the fact that there were over 2,000 bodies (Both Israelis and Gazans), even though this position is uncommon, there were others found in similar positions that day.
Here we can see the body of a person who was initially reported to be a Hamas fighter (we do not have any official identification). you can see he is in an anti-gravitational pugilistic attitude due to severe burns, with arms raised, knees bent and raised, spread open - yet no one is claiming he was raped.
Here you can see the same body from a different angle.
Here you can see another Hamas fighter, killed while riding a motorcycle. Is hands are raised and his right knee is bent and elevated.
We have seen three more examples of anti-gravitational positions of bodies from October 7th and there are likely dozens more but I think the point is clear. Note that Abdush was not the only case of anti-gravitational poses used by Israel to suggest abnormal sadism by Hamas. Other bodies with raised hands were used to imply the victim was shot while begging for their life or protecting their face.
In conclusion
Humans do not turn to statues at the moment of death and you can not deduce from their position how they died. There are several options as to how Abdush arrived at that position but we know for sure that she was not killed in that position, as it is anti-gravitational. While this position is unlikely, the circumstances and number of bodies on Oct 7th make it almost certain that some bodies will be found in such conditions and indeed, at least several were.
Final point worth mentioning:
While the layperson in Israel could not be expected to know these facts, the body collectors, doctors and most certainly Israel's pathologists, are well aware that Abdush did not die in the position she was found in and neither did the rest of the raised-hands bodies. They chose to lie or remain silent, as this became the basis for the assumption that the October 7th attack also involved rapes. Those people betrayed their professions and the victims to win cheap points on the propaganda war.
Yet "the rape of the woman in the black dress" claim continues to this day. Israeli media constantly mentions it and so does western media such as the New York Times (NYT).
This continues even though Abdush’s family rejects the claim, said the NYT lied to them and have shown, based on text messages near the time of death, that Abdush could not have been raped at all. You can read more here.
This sort of usage of victims and fabrication of war crimes, promoted silently or actively by a state and the people working for it, is known as atrocity propaganda. It is utilized specifically because it arouses such strong emotions in us, making it very effective. Those who speak against it are easily labeled as supporters of the claimed act or its perpetrators, which is a great tool for silencing decent with fear.
Gal Abdush was killed on October 7th, likely by Hamas fire. There is absolutely no evidence that she was raped and, given the messages from her husband, the likelihood that she was verges on impossible. Nonetheless, Abdush was most definitely the victim of two horrific acts that were done to her against her will: her killing and the use of her body to promote atrocity propaganda, arguably to dehumanize Palestinians and to justify Israel's war crimes visited upon them in revenge.
Note that everything we wrote here is known to many journalists. Atrocity propaganda is common in most wars but when the claims come from the side we empathize with (say Israel or Ukraine, for most in the west), we tend to use a much lower burden of proof to arrive at conclusions than what we or the NYT would use if the exact same claim came from the side we are apathetic about or outright hate (say Hamas or Russia).
For example, there have been dozens of videos from Gaza showing IDF soldiers shooting unarmed Gazans, even when carrying white flags or raising their hands. But, according to western media and governments, one should not deduce from a video showing Palestinians raising their hands then being shot that they actually raised their hands and were shot. Yet the elevated arms of burnt Israeli corpses are 100% certain to have been the result of being shot in that position by Hamas after being raped. An Israeli claim is a smoking gun for the NYT, yet a video of an IDF soldier standing with an actual smoking gun over the body of a Palestinian is not.