At first, she was known simply as “the woman in the black dress”. In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread. Her face is burned beyond recognition and her right hand covers her eyes.
The video was shot in the early hours of October 8 by a woman searching for a missing friend at the site of the rave in southern Israel where, the day before, Hamas fighters killed hundreds of young Israelis.
The video went viral, with thousands of people responding, desperate to know if the woman in the black dress was their missing friend, sister or daughter.
One family knew exactly who she was — Gal Abdush, mother of two from a working-class town in central Israel, who disappeared from the rave that night with her husband.
Based largely on the video evidence — which was verified by The New York Times — Israeli police officials said they believed that Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the October 7 attacks.
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