Image: Women and children bidding farewell to murdered relatives; Gaza, October 2024 [PHOTO: Anas-Mohammed, Shutterstock]
Introduction
by Leah Levane, Jewish Voice for Labour
Five days before Israel recommenced its pulverisation of Gaza, an Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, published a harrowing and damning report: More than a Human Can Bear: Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023.
Sexual violence and gender-based violence by Israeli soldiers and guards is not new but escalated dramatically since the events of October 7th 2023. Furthermore, as this article outlines, the overall impact of the bombardments, displacement, destruction of health care, starvation and more has had a particular impact on women and children, most especially on pregnant women, such that this will, in itself, have a long term impact on their reproductive health, impacting future generations of Palestinians.
Since Tuesday 18 March 2025, the situation has worsened catastrophically and working to stop the carnage is obviously the priority, but it is important that this report – and others like it, such as that by BT’Selem into Israeli prisons being torture camps for Palestinians – are not overlooked or forgotten.
This article was originally published by Truthout on Fri 14 Mar 2025.
UN Report: Israel’s Gender-Based Violence in Gaza Amounts to “Genocidal Acts”
Israel’s bombing of a crucial IVF clinic and destruction of 4,000 embryos was an act of genocide, experts found
by Sharon Zhang, Truthout
The Israeli military has systematically committed sexual, reproductive, and other gender-based violence in its siege of Gaza, including attacks so horrific that they amount to “genocidal acts” against Palestinians, a new UN report has found.
The OHCHR Report by an independent UN human rights commission, released Thursday, 13 March 2025, finds that Israel has systematically destroyed Gaza’s sexual and reproductive health care capacity across Gaza in its assault, while also committing widespread acts of sexual violence, including rape and violence to the genitals, against Palestinians. While Gaza was subjected to the worst attacks, Israeli forces and settlers have also carried out such acts in the occupied West Bank, the report says.
The UN experts lay out a wide swath of evidence of sexual violence against Palestinians, which the commission finds has escalated drastically amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“There is no escape from the conclusion that Israel has employed sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians to terrorise them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination,” said Navi Pillay, who heads the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which prepared the report.
Their findings include horrific accounts of Israeli soldiers posting pictures and videos of Palestinians who they forced to strip on social media, as well as threats of sexual assault and forced public nudity. The report also includes accounts of rape and sexual assault both in and out of Israel’s torture camps, with some attacks so violent that the victim needed medical care as a result.
Israeli forces have killed 150 people and wounded over 600 others in the besieged enclave since January 19.
Such sexual violence was committed with supervision from top Israeli officials, the commission found, or was carried out under explicit orders from military and civilian leadership.
The report also details how Israel has targeted and annihilated Palestinians’ reproductive abilities — an act of genocide, the report says, meant to prevent births amid the targeted population. Specifically, Israel’s intentional bombing of Al-Basma IVF Center in December 2023, which destroyed 4,000 embryos, was “was done with the intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, in whole or in part,” the report says.
“Women and girls have also died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth due to the conditions imposed by the Israeli authorities impacting access to reproductive health care, acts that amount to the crime against humanity of extermination,” the report says.
The destruction of reproductive health care in Gaza will have “irreversible long-term effects” on the Palestinian population’s prospects for reproduction, Pillay said.
The commission adds that Israel’s near-total humanitarian aid blockade and starvation campaign especially affected pregnant people, post-partum people, and babies, further compromising reproductive health and the survival of future generations of Palestinians.
(This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.)
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Human Rights Council
58th Session
“More than a human can bear”: Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel
Summary
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, submits the present conference room paper to the Human Rights Council on the systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence by the Israeli Security Forces since 7 October 2023. In the paper, the Commission examines Israel’s widespread destruction of Gaza and the disproportionate violence against women and children resulting from Israel’s method of war, including the targeting of residential buildings and the indiscriminate use of heavy explosives in densely populated areas. It describes the destruction of Palestinians through reproductive violence and harms resulting from the Israeli Security Forces’ deliberate attacks on sexual and reproductive health care facilities and the collapsed health care infrastructure in Gaza. The Commission also examines the sharp increase in sexual and gender-based violence perpetrated by members of the Israeli Security Forces and settlers online and in person across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. It also examines how sexual and gender-based violence has taken different forms when committed against male and female members of the Palestinian community in order to dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part.
