TEL AVIV — The Dinah Project has been selected to receive the 2025 Transparency Shield from Transparency International Israel – Shvil, in recognition of its work documenting war crimes and sexual violence committed during Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and against Israeli hostages held in Gaza. The award ceremony was held on Dec. 23 at Tel Aviv University.
According to Transparency International Israel, the award was granted for the project’s sustained and methodical efforts to clarify evidence, verify facts, and present legally grounded documentation to the Israeli public and the international community, often in the face of skepticism, opposition, and denial.
“The Transparency Shield is awarded to initiatives that advance transparency, public accountability, and justice,” the organization said in a statement. “The Dinah Project’s work has contributed significantly to exposing the truth about crimes that were initially met with disbelief or silence in international arenas.”
The Dinah Project was established in the aftermath of the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. From its inception, the project focused on documenting sexual violence used as a weapon of war, both during the attack itself and against hostages taken into Gaza.
At the award ceremony, Nava Ben-Or, a retired judge and founding member of The Dinah Project, addressed what she described as a broader failure by international institutions to respond adequately to these crimes.
“International organizations and institutions that participated, or continue to participate, in the silence and denial surrounding these crimes have revealed a profound double standard,” Ben-Or said. “Their failure has created a category of victims deemed less worthy of protection, as if basic human rights are conditional on political identity.”
Ben-Or said the project’s central objective has been to establish a factual and legal record that meets the standards of international criminal law, regardless of political pressure or prevailing narratives.
“This is why we fight for recognition and truth,” she said. “Exposing the facts was one of the central goals of ‘A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond.’ Recognition must be followed by accountability.”
The book she referenced, A Quest for Justice: October 7 and Beyond, is The Dinah Project’s flagship legal and evidentiary publication. Released in early July 2025, the volume compiles what the project describes as the most comprehensive documentation to date of conflict-related sexual violence committed by Hamas. The material is drawn from open-source intelligence, vetted reports, survivor testimony, and corroborated evidence reviewed under a legal evidentiary framework.
Transparency International Israel – Shvil was founded in 1998 by the late Prof. Dov Yizraeli within the Kohler Faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University. The organization operates as the Israeli chapter of Transparency International, which works through more than 100 chapters worldwide to promote transparency and combat corruption. Transparency International is also known for publishing the annual Corruption Perceptions Index.
The Dinah Project operates under the Rackman Center at Bar-Ilan University. It describes itself as a global initiative focused on advancing justice for victims of conflict-related sexual violence, with a particular emphasis on terror and genocide related crimes.
Named after Dinah, the first recorded survivor of rape in the Bible, the project positions itself at the intersection of law, feminism, and human rights. Its founders say this framework allows the project to develop new legal approaches to prosecuting sexual crimes committed in the context of terrorism and mass atrocities.
Unlike traditional human rights documentation efforts, The Dinah Project applies a legal evidentiary methodology designed to meet the thresholds required in criminal and international courts. Project researchers analyze verified information with the explicit goal of supporting future legal proceedings rather than advocacy alone.
In its citation for the award, Transparency International Israel noted that the project’s work contributed to growing international recognition of Hamas’s use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, including recent acknowledgments within the United Nations system.
Organizers said the Transparency Shield reflects not only past work but an expectation that The Dinah Project will continue its documentation and legal efforts as international accountability mechanisms evolve.
