UN experts have accused Israel of escalating sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians while systematically destroying maternal and reproductive healthcare facilities, which they claim amounts to “genocidal acts.”
A report commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council outlines alleged violations, including instances of rape, in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank following Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which triggered the ongoing conflict. The report further suggests that the destruction of maternity wards and embryos at a fertility clinic may indicate a deliberate effort to prevent births within a specific group, which meets one of the legal definitions of genocide.
Israel has firmly denied these allegations, with its government dismissing the report’s findings as baseless. “Israel categorically rejects the unfounded allegations,” the government stated.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded with strong criticism, labeling the Human Rights Council as “an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting and irrelevant body.” He argued that instead of focusing on war crimes committed by Hamas, the council was unjustly targeting Israel with “false accusations.”
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, was tasked with investigating alleged violations of international humanitarian and human rights laws.
This three-member commission stated that its findings were derived from testimonies of victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence, visual evidence such as verified photos and videos, and information from civil society and women’s rights organizations. Some testimonies were presented during two days of public hearings in Geneva earlier this week.
Navi Pillay, a former UN human rights chief from South Africa who chairs the commission, stated, “The evidence collected reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence,” which she claims Israel is using to “terrorize” Palestinians and maintain an oppressive system that undermines their right to self-determination.
According to the report, specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence—including forced public stripping, sexual harassment such as threats of rape, and sexual assault—are “part of the Israeli Security Forces’ standard operating procedures toward Palestinians.”
The report further claims that rape and violence targeting genital areas were either committed “under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership.” However, it does not present direct evidence of such orders from military commanders or senior officials. Instead, it cites remarks from Israeli ministers who defended soldiers accused of severe mistreatment of a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military base last year.
Chris Sidoti, an Australian human rights lawyer and member of the commission, told the BBC, “Sexual violence is now so widespread that it can only be considered systematic. It’s got beyond the level of random acts by rogue individuals.”
Israel has rejected claims of systemic mistreatment and torture of Gaza detainees, insisting that it adheres fully to international legal standards.
The report also highlights the commission’s findings that Israeli forces have systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities throughout Gaza during the war, which has now lasted 17 months.
It states that numerous women and girls have died due to pregnancy-related complications caused by conditions imposed by Israeli authorities, which have restricted access to reproductive healthcare. According to the commission, these actions amount to “the crime against humanity of extermination.”
Additionally, the report alleges that Israeli authorities have “destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group” through the “systematic destruction” of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, including maternity hospitals and wards, as well as Gaza’s main in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic, the Al-Basma IVF Centre in Gaza City.
The destruction of these medical facilities, the report concludes, falls under “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.”
The commission asserts that the embryology laboratory at Al-Basma was struck in early December 2023, reportedly destroying approximately 4,000 embryos along with 1,000 sperm samples and unfertilized eggs.
A visual analysis of images led the commission to determine that the destruction was caused by a large-caliber projectile, likely an Israeli tank shell. The report claims the attack was deliberate. However, at the time, the Israeli military told ABC News that it had no knowledge of a strike on the clinic. The BBC has since contacted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment.
Chris Sidoti commented, “The deliberate destruction of a health facility is one serious issue for international humanitarian law and human rights law. But it does appear from our analysis of the attack on this clinic, that it was knowingly and intentionally directed towards the destruction of reproductive services. The consequence of this is the prevention of births.”
Israel’s mission to the UN in Geneva strongly criticized the report, calling it “a shameless attempt to incriminate the IDF and manufacture the illusion of ‘systemic’ use of sexual and gender-based violence.”
Israeli officials argued that the commission relied on “information from second-hand single uncorroborated sources,” a methodology that, they claimed, does not align with established UN standards.
The statement emphasized that the IDF has “concrete directives, procedures, orders, and policies, which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct” and maintains investigative mechanisms to handle any allegations of sexual violence.
Prime Minister Netanyahu also dismissed the report’s conclusions, calling the Human Rights Council an “anti-Israel circus.”
“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and the war crimes that were perpetrated by the Hamas terrorist organization in the worst massacre carried out against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN has again chosen to attack the State of Israel with false accusations, including baseless accusations of sexual violence,” Netanyahu said.
According to UN experts, their determination that “reasonable grounds to conclude” these crimes were committed was based on an analysis of digital evidence, as well as statements from victims and witnesses. Fernando Travesi of the International Center for Transitional Justice told the BBC that their methodology provided sufficient proof to justify the conclusions.
However, he noted that while the commission applies a different standard of evidence than a court of law, criminal liability for genocide would have to be proven “beyond any reasonable doubt” in a judicial setting.
The International Court of Justice is currently hearing a case brought by South Africa, which accuses Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has adamantly denied these accusations.
The conflict in Gaza began after Hamas launched an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. The attack killed approximately 1,200 people, and 251 were taken hostage.
Since then, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reports that over 48,520 people have been killed. The war has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents multiple times, leaving nearly 70% of the territory’s buildings damaged or destroyed. The region’s healthcare, water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure has collapsed, and there are severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine, and shelter.