Substantial evidence and Israel’s consistent obstructions of all United Nations investigations into allegations of sexual violence since 7 October 2023 indicate systematic and widespread acts of rape and other forms of sexual violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians.
The victims include prisoners and detainees, constitute grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. The grounds for the inclusion of Israel on the UN’s blacklist of entities suspected of perpetrating sexual violence in conflicts are compelling.
For the past 15 months, Israel has consistently refused to cooperate with all United Nations bodies with an investigative mandate to examine allegations of rape and other forms of sexual violence arising from the attacks of 7 October.
This refusal reportedly stems from concerns that a comprehensive investigation would expose Israel’s systematic use of mass rape against Palestinians, including women and children, as Patten had insisted that access to Israeli detention centres to investigate allegations against Israeli soldiers was a crucial requirement for the process.
Israel’s refusal is particularly striking given that Israeli civil society, until recently, held a generally favourable view of Patten, and even called on her to revisit Israel.
Patten’s earlier report, published on 11 March 2024, marks the only instance in which the Israeli government has provided information to a UN inquiry into allegations of sexual violence. However, as clearly stated in the report, the mission’s mandate at that time was not investigative. The report recommended that the Israeli government cooperate with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (CoI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (oPt), including East Jerusalem and Israel, as well as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), to facilitate comprehensive investigations into all alleged violations, especially after Israel denied these entities access and cooperation, as highlighted in the report.
The Israeli obstruction of truth in this context was first evidenced in January 2024, when the Israeli government expressly prohibited Israeli doctors and relevant authorities from cooperating with the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, labeling the commission as “anti-Israeli and antisemitic”. Since then, the Israeli government has persistently maintained this obstructive stance, undermining the Commission’s efforts to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation, which constitutes a failure by Israel to comply with its obligation under international law to cooperate with UN bodies. Israeli is also denying victims on both sides their right to justice and accountability for the alleged violations.
“Israel’s repeated refusal to cooperate with all UN investigations into sexual violence highlights the Israeli government’s exploitation of the allegations of this grave crime as a propaganda tool to manufacture consent for its full-fledged, live-streamed genocide,” said Ramy Abdu, Chairman of Euro-Med Monitor. “Israel merely uses these allegations to shame and smear critics and deflect blame from its formidable crimes against humanity.”
Over the past 15 months, the Euro-Med Monitor team has documented numerous instances of Israeli-perpetrated sexual violence, including rape and other forms of sexualised torture, against Palestinian civilians, including individuals abducted to Israel’s Sde Teiman torture camp.
In at least one instance, a Palestinian detainee was subjected to rape by Israeli police dogs as part of their assault. In Sde Teiman, “the soldiers took off the blindfolds covering our eyes for the first time,” lawyer Fadi Saif al-Din Bakr, released on 22 February 2024 after 45 days of detention, told the Euro-Med Monitor team. “The soldiers later pulled a young man sitting to my right, forced him to sleep on the ground, and tied his hands and feet. Suddenly, the occupation soldiers let loose trained police dogs on the young man, who was subjected to rape by the dogs. Throughout the entire ordeal I endured, this was among the most awful things that I witnessed.”
Recently, the Euro-Med Monitor team documented horrific testimonies at Kamal Adwan Hospital regarding the sexual assault of civilians, including female medical staff and children. The victims were forced to remove their clothes and headscarves and subjected to humiliating body searches by male Israeli army personnel. One woman, forcibly evacuated from the hospital, recounted to the Euro-Med Monitor team: “A soldier forced a nurse to remove her trousers and then placed his hand on her genitals. When she tried to resist, he struck her hard across the face, causing her nose to bleed.”
