Both Israeli forces, Hamas indulged in sexual violence: UN experts
The report laid out a wide array of alleged rights violations and crimes by both sides; Israel refused to cooperate with the experts
A panel of human rights experts backed by the United Nations (UN) has blamed both Israeli armed forces and Palestinian militants of indulging in sexual and gender-based violence in the first five months of their ongoing war.
Both sides committed war crimes while Israel also indulged in crimes against humanity, said the report which covered the time from October 7 when the Hamas went on a rampage in Israel, triggering a brutal military blitzkrieg by Tel Aviv.
Israel is furious
Israel refused to cooperate with the body and accused it of bias. It has also rejected the allegations.
The report laid out a wide array of alleged rights violations and crimes by both sides.
It accused Israeli forces of committing forced starvation, murder, collective punishment and intentional attacks on civilians, and charged the Hamas and other armed Palestinian groups with performing deliberate killings and mistreatment of civilians and hostage-taking.
ISF flayed
It said that frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes against Palestinians by Israeli security forces amounted to signs that some forms of such violence “are part of ISF operating procedures”.
Despite denials by Hamas' military wing of sexual violence against Israeli women, the report said the experts documented “cases indicative of sexual violence” against women and men near the site of a large music festival, a military outpost and several kibbutzim that the raiders attacked in October.
Navi Pillay
The expert panel was commissioned in 2021 by the UN-backed Human Rights Council to look into rights violations and abuses in Israel and the Palestinian areas it controls.
Led by Navi Pillay, a former UN human rights chief, the experts do not speak for the world body itself.
Widening gulf
Israel's diplomatic mission in Geneva blasted the experts, saying they had “outrageously and repugnantly” drawn “a false equivalence between IDF soldiers and Hamas terrorists”.
The report and Israel's response marked the latest sign of a growing gulf between the UN and its affiliate institutions and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
More than 37,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed and over 84,000 injured in Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza since October last year, triggering global condemnation.
