UN team finds grounds to support reports of sexual violence in Hamas attack

A United Nations report released Monday found signs that sexual violence was committed in multiple locations during the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and said some hostages held in the Gaza Strip were also subjected to rape and sexual torture.

From late January to early February, the United Nations deployed a team of experts to Israel and the West Bank led by Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict.

In their reportthe experts said they had found “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence took place during the Hamas-led incursion into Israel, including rape and gang rape in at least three locations: the Nova music festival and the area surrounding it. as Road 232 and Kibbutz Re’im.

“In most of these incidents, victims who were first subjected to rape were subsequently killed, and at least two incidents involved the rape of female corpses,” the report said.

The UN report, which also cites allegations that Palestinians held by Israel have also been sexually abused, was issued three months after The New York Times published a comprehensive report on sexual violence during the Hamas-led attack, including several incidents along Road 232. Hamas’s leaders denied the accusations, and the U.N. report, which noted the many fighters who took part in the Oct. 7 attack, said experts could not determine who was responsible for the sexual attacks.

In their report, the UN experts cited evidence of sexual violence that had not previously been widely reported, including the rape of a woman outside a bomb shelter at the entrance to Kibbutz Re’im. That incident was confirmed by witness statements and digital material, the report said.

The experts said they also found “a pattern of victims, mostly women, partially or completely naked, tied up and shot in multiple locations.” Although the evidence was circumstantial, they said, the pattern could indicate some form of sexual violence and torture.

When it came to the hostages captured in Israel and taken to Gaza, the report offered a more conclusive conclusion.

It said it had found “clear and convincing information”, based on first-hand accounts from released hostages, that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, had been committed against some women and children during their captivity. It also said there were reasonable grounds to believe that such abuse took place against the hostages still being held.

Israel welcomed the report because it acknowledges “that the crimes were committed simultaneously in different locations and indicate a pattern of rape, torture and sexual abuse,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.

The UN report said its experts could not verify reports of sexual violence in Kibbutz Kfar Aza or Kibbutz Be’eri. But in both places, the report said, indirect information – “particularly the recurring pattern of female victims being stripped naked, tied up and shot” in Kfar Aza, for example – indicated that sexual violence, including “possible sexualized torture,” may have occurred has occurred. .

It said that two specific allegations of sexual violence in Kibbutz Be’eri, which were widely repeated by the media, were, however, “unfounded”.

First responders told The Times that they found bodies of women at these two kibbutzim with signs of sexual abuse, but The Times did not refer in its report to the specific allegations, which the UN said were unfounded.

The UN report details the enormous challenges in determining what happened on the day of the attack.

For starters, it was nearly impossible to access the kind of forensic evidence often used to diagnose sexual assault. In part, this was due to the large number of casualties and widespread attack locations.

The report also said first responders – often untrained volunteers – focused more on search and rescue operations and recovering the dead than on collecting evidence. And many of the bodies were badly burned, compromising any evidence.

The experts said they had called on women in Israel who survived the October 7 attacks to come forward, but had not spoken to anyone directly. A small number of survivors, they said, may still be receiving treatment for trauma.

They also noted a deep distrust among Israelis toward international organizations such as the United Nations, as well as the fact that the team was only on site for a limited period of two and a half weeks.

“Overall, the mission team believes that the true prevalence of sexual violence during the October 7 attacks and their aftermath may take months or years to emerge and may never be fully known,” the report said .

According to the report, the UN team had also heard stories of sexual violence against Palestinians involving Israeli security forces and settlers.

Palestinian officials and civil society representatives told the UN team about the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Palestinians in detention, including various forms of sexual violence in the form of invasive body searches, threats of rape and prolonged forced nudity.” as well as sexual harassment and threats of rape, during home invasions and at checkpoints.”

The UN team has asked the Government of Israel to grant access to other UN bodies, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, so that they can conduct thorough independent investigations into these allegations .

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said: “Israel rejects the report’s call to investigate Palestinian claims of ‘sexual violence by Israeli elements’.”

Ms Patten had said her trip was not intended for investigative purposes – other UN agencies have that mandate, she said – but to “give a voice” to victims and survivors and find ways to provide them with support, including justice and accountability .

The UN team included technical experts who could interpret forensic evidence, analyze open-source digital information and conduct interviews with victims and witnesses of sexual violence, the report said.

Ms Patten said one challenge the UN experts faced was sorting through the scarcity of reliable information and inaccurate reports from untrained people.

“On the one hand,” she said, “we have the fog of war that often silences the grounds of sexual violence. But we have also seen cases in the history of war in which sexual violence can be used as a weapon.”