A Green Party spin doctor has denied that women were raped in the October 7 attacks in 2023.
Abi Wilkinson, appointed just days before the party’s victory in Gorton & Denton’s by-election, posted on social media that “there is no Israeli woman who’s said she was raped by militants”.
She also wrote on X: “There’s absolutely no new evidence, there is not a single identified victim.”
There is evidence of rape and sexual violence being committed during the attack – in December 2023, the BBC reported that “few victims are thought to have survived to tell their own stories”.
Eyewitness accounts, officials and experts from Israel and the UN concluded there were “convincing evidence” of rapes, gang rape and sexual violence during the attack.
The 35-year-old also said she would not be “intimidated into pretending non-existent evidence from 7/10 is real”, the Daily Mail reports.
On October 7, 2023, 1,219 people were killed after an armed incursion carried out by Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups entered Israel.
There have been calls for Ms Wilkinson to be sacked.
The X account associated with Abi Wilkinson is no longer available
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Joani Reid, Labour MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) Against Antisemitism, said: “The commends linked to this Green Party press officer are repellent.
“Denying the October 7 atrocities, casting doubt on the rape and murder of women, and recycling anti-Semitic tropes is disgraceful.
“It insults victims and fuels fear in Jewish communities here at home.
“Zack Polanski should sack her – he won’t, and that tells you a great deal about the standards he is willing to live with.
The Dinah Project said ‘Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon’ during the October 7 attacks
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“We should not be handling them with kid gloves because they wrap themselves in the progressive label.
“If a party harbours extremism, it should expect to be called out.”
Ms Wilkinson’s career before the Green Party’s press office includes writing for Novara Media, the left-wing news outlet, and for the Guardian.
Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party, praised her as a “prolific writer and fearless advocate for Palestine”.
The X account associated with Ms Wilkinson has since been deleted, but The Mail on Sunday revealed that she made repeated comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.
In one post, she wrote that Israel was pursuing “Lebensraum”, the Nazi term for “living space” used to justify the invasion of Eastern Europe during World War II.
She also wrote that Israel was turning Gaza into a “concentration camp” and shared a post on X that used the term “Judeonazi”.
In another post, she responds to pictures of Israelis, writing: “Some of them are pretty and it doesn’t make them less demonic.”
Labour MP Natalie Fleet said: “Rape has been used as an act of war since time began.
“When political parties who seek power deny what happens to women, it sets us all back.
“Dismissing reports of sexual violence and mutilation during the October 7 Hamas attack is no different.
“People that refute the testimony of victims shouldn’t be anywhere near British politics.
The Dinah Project represents rape victims from the October 7 attack and has analysed evidence from various sources from the event.
They said, “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon”, adding that “most victims were permanently silenced”, because they were either killed or left too traumatised to talk.
Some of Hamas’s hostages have also described becoming “sex slaves” after being taken kidnapped.
A Green Party spokesman told the Mail on Sunday: “We do not comment on individual staff members.”
GB News has reached out to the Green Party.