Press Conferences , Edited News | HRC
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
1
1
2
Edited News | WHO
The first meagre midweek delivery of urgently needed medical goods to enter Gaza in months will provide scant relief to the enclave’s people, who continue to be shot and killed as they search for food, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
2
1
2
Statements , Edited News | HRC
Enhanced interactive dialogue on the High Commissioner’s report on Myanmar presented by Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and oral update by Thomas Andrews, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
1
1
1
Press Conferences | WHO
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired a hybrid press briefing, which was attended by the representatives and spokespersons of the World Health Organisation, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the World Meteorological Organisation.
1
1
1
Edited News | UNOG
The conflict-impacted people of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) urgently need much more international assistance than they are getting today, the UN’s top aid official said on Thursday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | OHCHR
Forms of sex-based violence against women and girls, and the concept of consent in relation to violence against women and girls
1
1
1
Press Conferences | UNCTAD
How AI and the digital economy intersect with labor markets, policy gaps, and global equity – Background briefing ahead of Ai for Good Summit
1
1
2
Edited News | UNOG
Violence in Myanmar is spiralling as the military junta increases its attacks on monasteries, schools and camps sheltering people uprooted by the civil war, a top independent human rights investigator warned on Wednesday.
1
1
1
Press Conferences | OHCHR
Press conference by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan on Palestinians killed seeking food in Gaza
1
1
1
Press Conferences | OHCHR
Call for Solidarity and Peace: Addressing the Normalization of Violence and Arctic Militarization Risks through Indigenous Peoples’ Examples, Including Insights from the Independent Expert’s Visit to Denmark and Greenland
1
1
1
Press Conferences | ITU , OHCHR , UNCTAD , UNESCO , UNHCR
Alessandra Vellucci, Director of 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 United Nations Refugee Agency, the International Telecommunication Union, and the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization.
1
1
1
Edited News | OHCHR
Iran-Israel war: UN rights office concerned over strike on Tehran prison, reported espionage arrests
Tehran’s notorious Evin prison known for holding dissidents should not be a target, the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) said on Tuesday, a day after a reported Israeli strike on the complex.