October 7, Rome embraces Israeli women
Minister Roccella: Let’s make this a day against femicide

“You should not remain silent” in the face of Hamas rapes and violences against Israeli women. This message powerfully resonated at the marathon oratory organized in Rome on the International Women’s Day by the Setteottobre Association (October 7 Association). “We should not remain silent while Italian feminist movements forget the most heinous mass rape ever committed in the West since the Kosovo war. We should remain silent in the face of those who consider the rape of Israeli women, of Jewish women, less equal than others,” said the organizers of the demonstration.
In the audience, among the flags of Israel, several signs recalled the horror of five months ago. They recalled faces and stories of women kidnapped by Palestinian terrorists. One lady held a yellow piece of cloth on which the appeal reads in Hebrew, “Bring them home.” On another it read, “Free the women from the slavery of Hamas.”
The Israeli historian Tamar Herzig, from the stage read a message from Ayelet Levy Shahar, whose 19-year-old daughter Naama was kidnapped and brought to Gaza. The video of the young girl dragged away by her hair by terrorists has become a symbol of the horror of October 7. “Those images turned Naama into the daughter of us all. As a mother, I am powerless in the face of those moments of terror.”
For 153 days and 153 nights my heart has been broken. Her nightmares are my own. We must be her voice as she is silenced by Hamas, hurt, and abused,” wrote Levy Shahar. Then a final question, “Where is the international community in the face of all this? Where is the world?” And where are the feminists, questioned many speakers.
According to Lucetta Scaraffia, historian and journalist, “the shame of their silence represents the end of Italian feminism. How can one not denounce that horror, those femicides, rapes, mutilations of which we have the footage because they were documented” by the torturers themselves, Scaraffia wondered. “Silence is violence, removal is violence,” stressed Alessandra Tarquini, historian and professor at La Sapienza University. “I am also here to say that not only should we not boycott Israeli universities, but this is the time to support them more.”
Great bitterness then in the reflections of writer Lia Levi, who survived the Holocaust. “Those women on October 7 were mauled. They were the victims of the worst pogrom against Jews since the postwar period. Yet public opinion did not want to hear about it. Why? Because Jews must not exist, at least that is the will of Hamas.” And those who incite the terrorist group in Italian squares “claim that Jews must be wiped off the face of the Earth. How do we defend ourselves? By having a meeting like this. We have a voice and we must make it heard.”
Being against Hamas also means being against patriarchy, stressed Paola Concia, activist and former deputy of the Democratic Party. “Our hope is that the women, the men, the children of Gaza will be liberated from Hamas.” Two young Iranian women also took the stage to express solidarity and to recall the horrors of the Teheran regime against women.
There were many messages of support for Israel, such as that of the League Anna Cinzia Bonfrisco. “We adhere not only to this demonstration, but in toto to the reasons of Israel, a state and a people defending themselves from protracted attacks, against which a war was declared on October 7, a war that has passed over the bodies of so many women.”
For Family and Equal Opportunity Minister Eugenia Roccella, “today it is more difficult but necessary not to leave Israel alone, the only place in the Middle East where women can be free. I would like to make a proposal. March 8 is International Women’s Day and it comes from a mournful date, a serious fire that happened so many years ago. October 7 is equally so, because it was the first mass femicide. Hence I will try to make it the date against femicide.”
“We are here today as Italian Jews to reaffirm truth, solidarity, affection and closeness to the women, girls and mothers who were just waking up or still dancing when they were slaughtered and raped,” said the President of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni, who was among the speakers. She harshly condemned the feminist movements that did not express solidarity with the victims of October 7, but chose to stand only for one side. “To the women of the ‘Non una di meno’ movement I say: if you had been there, you would have been raped and massacred as well, without hesitation” (click here to read her full speech).