Reasonable Grounds to Believe Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Occurred in Israel During 7 October Attacks, Senior UN Official Tells Security Council
There are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence — including rape and gang-rape — occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7 October 2023, a senior United Nations official reported to the Security Council today, as she presented findings from her visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Following allegations of brutal sexual violence committed during and in the aftermath of the Hamas-led terror attacks, Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, led an official visit to Israel from 29 January to 14 February to gather, analyse and verify reports of sexual violence related to the 7 October attack. Due to ongoing hostilities, the Special Representative did not request to visit Gaza, where other UN entities that monitor sexual violence are operational.
“What I witnessed in Israel were scenes of unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality,” Ms. Patten recalled. Detailing her methodology, she said that her team met with families of hostages and members of communities displaced from several kibbutzim. It conducted confidential interviews with 34 individuals, including survivors and witnesses of the 7 October attacks, released hostages, first responders and health and service providers. It visited four attack sites — as well as the morgue to which the bodies of victims were transferred — and reviewed over 5,000 photographic images and some 50 hours of footage of the attacks.
“It was a catalogue of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing, torture and other horrors,” including sexual violence, she stated. The team also found convincing information that sexual violence was committed against hostages, and has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may still be ongoing against those in captivity. While there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in the Nova music festival site, Route 232, and kibbutz Re’im, reported incidents of rape could not be verified in other locations. Concurrently, the team determined that at least two allegations of sexual violence in kibbutz Be’eri — widely reported in the media — were unfounded.
Turning to the West Bank, she painted a grim picture of “intense fear and insecurity, with women and men terrified and deeply disturbed over the ongoing tragedy in Gaza”. On her visit to Ramallah, she spotlighted instances of sexual violence in the context of detention, such as invasive body searches; beatings, including in the genital areas; and threats of rape against women and female family members. Sexual harassment and threats of rape during house raids and at checkpoints were also reported. She expressed disappointment that the immediate reaction to her report by some Israeli political actors was not to open inquiries into those alleged incidents but, rather, to reject them outright via social media.
However, she underscored that her findings do not legitimize further hostilities. Instead, they create a moral imperative for a humanitarian ceasefire to end the unspeakable suffering imposed on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and bring about the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. “I am horrified by the injustice of women and children killed in Gaza,” she said, stressing that the end goal of her mandate is not “a war without rape” but a “world without war”.
There are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence — including rape and gang-rape — occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7 October 2023, a senior United Nations official reported to the Security Council today, as she...
press.un.org
Questions and Answers: The Hamas-Led Armed Groups' October 7, 2023 Assault on Israel
Human Rights Watch research found that Palestinian armed groups involved in the assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law – also known as the laws of war – that amount to war crimes. These include deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects; willful killing of persons in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; crimes relating to sexual and gender-based violence; hostage-taking; mutilation and despoiling (robbing) of bodies; use of human shields; and pillage and looting.
Human Rights Watch also found that Palestinian armed groups committed a widespread attack directed against a civilian population, according to the definition required for crimes against humanity. This is based on the numerous civilian sites targeted and on the planning that Human Rights Watch documented went into the crimes. Human Rights Watch has further found that killing civilians and taking hostages were central aims of the planned attack, and not actions that occurred as an afterthought, or as a plan gone awry, or as isolated acts, for example solely by unaffiliated Palestinians from Gaza, and as such there is strong evidence of an organizational policy to commit multiple acts of crimes against humanity.
Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, an attack directed against a civilian population is defined as a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts of crimes against humanity, such as murder or unlawful imprisonment, pursuant to or in furtherance of a state or organizational policy to commit such an attack.
Human Rights Watch concludes that the murder of civilians and the taking of hostages – imprisonment in violation of fundamental rules of international law – on October 7, 2023, formed part of the attack and were crimes against humanity.
There should be further investigation of other potential crimes against humanity, including persecution against any identifiable group on racial, national, ethnic or religious grounds; rape or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; and extermination. These would amount to crimes against humanity if the acts amounting to these crimes were committed as part of the attack directed against a civilian population.
This report only covers the abuses committed on October 7; it does not examine the abuses committed during subsequent events including the treatment of hostages in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch research found that Palestinian armed groups involved in the assault on Israel on October 7, 2023, committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law – also known as the laws of war – that amount to war crimes.
www.hrw.org
Evidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks
This article is more than 1 year old
Guardian aware of sexual assaults for which multiple corroborating pieces of evidence exist
On Monday, UN-appointed independent experts
said that “given the number of victims and the extensive premeditation and planning of the attacks”, mounting evidence of rapes and genital mutilation pointed to possible crimes against humanity.
Israeli intelligence officials, experts and sources with direct knowledge of interrogation reports of captured Hamas fighters believe units that attacked were beforehand given a text that drew on a controversial and contested interpretation of traditional Islamic military jurisprudence, claiming that captives were “the spoils of war”. This potentially legitimised the abduction of civilians and other abuses, without being an explicit instruction to do so.
In at least two unsourced videos of interrogations of alleged Hamas members, which Israeli officials say they did not authorise for release, the men are heard talking about instructions given to rape women.