Gaza - New York: Europe and the Arabs
A report issued by an international commission of inquiry stated that Israel has increasingly used sexual and reproductive violence and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians "as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination, and has committed acts of genocide through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive health-care facilities." According to the UN Daily News Bulletin, a copy of which we received on Friday morning, the new report issued by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel documents a "wide range of violations" committed against Palestinian women, men, girls, and boys across the occupied Palestinian territory since October 7, 2023.
According to the report, these violations "constitute a key component of the ill-treatment of Palestinians and are part of the illegal occupation and persecution of Palestinians as a group." “The evidence gathered by the commission reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence,” said commission chair Navi Pillay. “It is inescapable that Israel has used sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians to terrorize them and maintain a regime of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination.”
The report’s release was accompanied by two days of public hearings in Geneva on March 11-12, during which the commission heard from victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence, the medical personnel who assisted them, as well as civil society representatives, academics, lawyers, and medical experts.
The report concluded that sexual and gender-based violence—which has increased in frequency and severity—is being perpetrated throughout the occupied Palestinian territory “as a war strategy by Israel to control and destroy the Palestinian people.” Specific forms of such violence—such as forced public nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, and sexual assault—are “part of the standard operating procedures of Israeli security forces toward Palestinians.”
The report stated that other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape and violence against genitals, “were committed either under the explicit orders or with the tacit encouragement of senior Israeli civilian and military leadership.”
According to the report, a climate of impunity also prevails regarding sexual and gender-based crimes committed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, with the aim of instilling fear and dispossessing Palestinian society.
“The justified statements and actions of Israeli commanders and the ineffectiveness of the military justice system in prosecuting and convicting perpetrators send a clear message to members of the Israeli security forces that they can continue to commit such acts without fear of accountability,” Navi Pillay said. Pellet pointed out that "accountability through the International Criminal Court and national courts, through domestic laws or the exercise of universal jurisdiction, is essential if the rule of law is to be upheld and justice for victims is to be achieved."
The UN commission found that Israeli forces systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities throughout Gaza. They also imposed a blockade and prevented humanitarian aid, including the provision of medicines and equipment necessary to ensure safe pregnancy, childbirth, post-natal care, and neonatal care.
The commission said these actions violate women's and girls' reproductive rights and autonomy, as well as their rights to life, health, family life, human dignity, physical and mental integrity, freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, self-determination, and the principle of non-discrimination.
The report noted that women and girls died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth as a result of conditions imposed by Israeli authorities that prevented access to reproductive healthcare—"acts that amount to the crime against humanity of genocide," according to the report. The Committee found that the Israeli authorities have, in part, destroyed the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive health care, amounting to two categories of genocide under the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including the infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and the imposition of measures intended to prevent births.
Long-term effects on mental health and reproductive prospects
The Chairperson of the Committee said, "The targeting of reproductive health care facilities, including through direct attacks on maternity wards and the main IVF clinic in Gaza, coupled with the use of starvation as a method of warfare, has affected all aspects of reproduction. These violations have not only caused severe immediate physical and mental harm and suffering to women and girls, but also have had irreversible long-term effects on the mental health, reproductive prospects, and fertility of Palestinians as a group." The commission found an unprecedented increase in female mortality in Gaza “as a result of an Israeli strategy of deliberately targeting residential buildings and using heavy explosives in densely populated areas.”
The commission also documented cases in which women and girls of all ages, including patients in maternity wards, were targeted—“acts that amount to the crime against humanity of murder and the war crime of willful killing.”
In a press release, the Israeli mission to the United Nations in Geneva said the Israeli government completely rejects the “baseless allegations” in the commission’s report and accused the commission of investigating the incident of exploiting sexual violence to further its “biased and predetermined political agenda.”