The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
Press Conferences , Edited News | HRC
HRC - Press Conference: Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory 13 March 2025
Rights probe alleges Israeli forces’ sexual violence against Palestinians used as a method of war
Senior human rights investigators reporting to the Human Rights Council alleged on Thursday that sexual and gender-based violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinian men, women and children have been increasingly used “as a method of war” following the 7 October 2023 attacks that sparked the Gaza war.
“Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination,” maintained Chris Sidoti from the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
Speaking in Geneva, the human rights lawyer said that “the frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated across the OPT leads the Commission to conclude that sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a method of war by Israel to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people”.
Established by the Council in May 2021, the Commission has a mandate to investigate and report on alleged violations of international law in the OPT, including East Jerusalem - and in Israel. Previous reports have covered in detail the terror attacks on Israeli villages and towns on 7 and 8 October by Hamas-led Palestinian armed fighters that killed around 1,250 people and left more than 250 taken as hostages back to Gaza.
Publication of the Commission’s report followed two days of public hearings held in Geneva from 11 to 12 March, featuring victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as civil society representatives, academics, lawyers and medical experts.
Mr. Sidoti said that the Commission had made several requests to the Israeli authorities for information on specific, serious cases of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian prisoners taken from Gaza. But no information has been provided about prosecutions of members of the Israeli security forces or Israeli settlers for sexual and violence committed since October 2023, he told journalists.
In a statement accompanying the release of the Commission’s report, it asserted that “forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault” were “standard operating procedure” of the Israeli Security Forces toward Palestinians.
“Other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and violence to the genitals, were committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership,” the report maintained.”
“We heard evidence - you would have heard it if you were looking at our hearings during the last two days - where men and boys were forced to strip wholly or almost wholly, that is down to underpants and then were kept in that condition, often having to sit on stones on the ground in the cold in winter for up to three days.”
The Commission also asserted that Israeli forces had systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza, including Gaza's largest fertility clinic, Al Basma centre, in December 2023.
Tank shelling destroyed about 4,000 embryos at the clinic that reportedly assisted 2,000-3,000 patients a month.
“There is a question about whether those who were firing the tank shell - because our conclusion is that it was destroyed by a tank shell - knew at that time that it was a fertility clinic,” Mr. Sidoti said. “But certainly their commanders knew and the commanders would have known that there were tanks operating within that vicinity and firing on buildings and fired on a healthcare facility that was clearly marked.”
The Commission’s report finds that the destruction amounts “to two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births”.
Head of the Commission, Navi Pillay, said in a statement that the targeting of reproductive healthcare facilities including “direct attacks” on maternity wards and the IVF clinic, “combined with the use of starvation as a method of war, has impacted all aspects of reproduction…These violations have not only caused severe immediate physical and mental harm and suffering to women and girls, but irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and reproductive and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a group.”
Israel ‘categorically rejects’ allegations
In a press release published on Wednesday, the Israeli mission in Geneva said their Government “categorically rejects the unfounded allegations” made in the commission’s report.
Israel accused the COI of instrumentalising sexual violence “to advance its predetermined and biased political agenda, setting back the important work of international institutions to combat the perpetration of these abhorrent acts as a weapon of war.”
STORY: Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory
TRT: 03’37”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 13 March 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Speaker: Chris Sidoti, Member of the Commission
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: Palais des Nations, Flag Alley.
- Wide shot of the Press room, podium speakers, journalists at UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “Our report finds that Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination. It also concludes that Israel has carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities.”
- Medium shot of podium speakers, TV screen showing Commissioner.
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated across the Occupied Palestinian Territory leads the Commission to conclude that sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a method of war by Israel to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people.”
- Wide, photographer, journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “The Commission documented a pattern of sexual violence, including cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and other inhumane acts that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
- Medium, Press room, TV screens showing Commissioner.
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “We have not made any finding of genocide; we have identified a number of acts that constitute the categories of genocidal act under the law, we have not yet examined the question of genocidal purpose.”
- Wide, Press room, photographer and journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “Several requests for information and access were sent to the Government of Israel, including requests for information on specific cases of sexual and gender-based violence carried out by members of the Israeli security forces. The Commission has not received any information about prosecutions of members of the Israeli security forces or Israeli settlers for sexual and violence committed since October 2023.”
- Medium-wide, journalists, photographer.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “We heard evidence - you would have heard it if you were looking at our hearings during the last two days - where men and boys were forced to strip wholly or almost wholly, that is down to underpants and then were kept in that condition, often having to sit on stones on the ground in the cold in winter for up to three days.”
- Medium, photographer, TV screen showing Commissioner.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “There is a question about whether those who were firing the tank shell - because our conclusion is that it was destroyed by a tank shell - knew at that time that it was a fertility clinic, but certainly their commanders knew and the commanders would have known that there were tanks operating within that vicinity and firing on buildings and fired on a healthcare facility that was clearly marked.”
- Medium-wide, photographer, journalists, TV journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “Victims of human rights violations are entitled to have their experience recorded and known, acknowledged and at the very least, we're doing that. But we don't have the capacity, we're not a court, we want the courts to act, we want states to act, we want the United Nations to act.”
- Medium-wide, TV journalists, control booths.
- Medium-wide, journalists.
Similar Stories
1
1
1
Edited News | WFP
The crisis in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) continues to worsen amid ongoing fighting that has driven tens of thousands of people from their homes and created acute hunger, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | OHCHR , UNHCR , UNICEF , WFP , WHO
1
1
1
Press Conferences | WMO , UNOG
2025 set to be second or third warmest year on record, continuing exceptionally high warming trend
The alarming streak of exceptional temperatures continued in 2025, which is set to be either the second or third warmest year on record, according to the State of the Global Climate Update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
1
1
1
Press Conferences | UNECE
UNECE report: Forests of North America, Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia
1
1
1
Edited News | WFP
Gaza: One million receive food parcels as humanitarians race to ‘push back hunger’
Food is slowly returning to the shelves in Gaza amid “apocalyptic scenes” but supplies are still desperately inadequate, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday, as they issued fresh calls for wider access and continued financial support.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | WMO , ITU , WFP , WHO , UNHCR , IFRC
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Geneva, chaired the hybrid briefing, which was attended by spokespersons and representatives from the International Telecommunication Union, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the United Nations Children's Fund.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango today told the bi-weekly UN press briefing in Geneva of more details that are emerging on the atrocities committed in El Fasher, in Sudan during and after its takeover by the Rapid Support Forces.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango made the following comment on Friday at the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani made the following comment on Friday at the bi-weekly press briefing in Geneva.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR , WHO
Sudan: UN Raises Alarm Over Mass Atrocities in El Fasher as Survivors Report Executions, Killings and Rapes
More details continue to emerge about atrocities committed during and after the fall of El Fasher to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan on 23 October. Since the powerful paramilitary group made a major incursion into the city last week, the UN Human Rights Office has received “horrendous accounts of summary executions, mass killings, rapes, attacks against humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement,” said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
1
1
1
Press Conferences | IFRC , OHCHR , UNDP , WFP , WHO
Rolando Gómez, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section at the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by the representatives and spokespersons of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Development Programme, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
1
1
1
Edited News | OCHA
Ukraine: Russian attacks on energy terrorize population as winter starts; could trigger major ‘crisis within crisis’
The UN’s top aid official in Ukraine expressed concern on Friday about “continuous attacks” on energy production sites and distribution facilities.