In the wake of the recent celebration of International Women’s Day a prominent Israeli historian specialising in gender issues has decried how the global event appeared to have no time for the 19 women who remain captives of the insurgent-terrorist group Hamas.

Noting that most of the women have likely endured sexual violence, Tamar Herzig was speaking at a 12 March event organised by the Israeli embassy to the Holy See to commemorate International Women’s Day, observed annually on 8 March, with the all-female guest-list including several ambassadors to the Holy See, reportsCrux.

“I don’t recall any Western country, definitely not during the 21st century, that had so many hostages held in such...very difficult conditions for so long,” said Herzig, a historian of Early Modern Europe who specialises in the oppression of marginalised groups, female slavery, gender violence and religious conversion, while also lamenting that there has been “no international outcry".