Shari Mendes, an architect serving in the IDF reserves in a rabbinical unit, was deployed to a morgue to prepare bodies for burial after the attacks. An American originally from New Jersey, Mendes did multiple TV and print interviews about her experiences. “We have seen women who have been raped, from the age of children through to the elderly,” she told reporters, emphasizing, “This is not just something we saw on the internet, we saw these bodies with our own eyes.”
For months, Mendes has served as one of the most visible witnesses bolstering Israel’s allegations of systematic rape. But few media outlets featuring her claims have mentioned the valid concerns about her credibility and her history of promoting a false story. She told the Daily Mail last October, “A baby was cut out of a pregnant woman and beheaded and then the mother was beheaded.”
On December 5, as Israel engaged in a global media push around its allegations that Hamas had committed mass rapes, Mendes was a featured speaker at an event in New York organized by Israel’s mission to the U.N. on sexual violence and the October 7 attacks. The Times of Israel reported that Mendes “is not legally qualified to determine rape.”