A new report from an independent United Nations Human Rights Council inquiry has found a “systemic use" of sexual violence by Israel.
Established back in 2021, the three-person Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory was set up to investigate all alleged violations against international humanitarian and human rights law.
And now the Commission’s new report has found specific that Palestinian women, men and children have faced a “deplorable increase” in gender based violence and sexual violence, through assault, attacks on reproductive care and the collapse of the health care system in Gaza as a result of the war.
The findings start from 7 October 2023, and the report released alongside by two days of public hearings held in Geneva, where one of the U.N.'s major locations is based.
“There is no escape from the conclusion that Israel has employed sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians to terrorise them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination,” said Commission Chair, Navi Pillay.
The Commission detailed that Israeli Security Forces standard of operation towards Palestinians included forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault.
It also noted violence undertaken against reproductive safety and health, with the "systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities" such as maternity wards and Gaza's main IVF clinic.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the findings in a statement, calling them “false accusations” and the Human Rights Council "an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body".
