A United Nations report released on Monday found signs of sexual violence at several locations during the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, and said some hostages in the Gaza Strip were also sexually assaulted and He was sexually assaulted.
From late January to early February, the United Nations deployed a team of experts to Israel and the West Bank led by Pamela Patton, the Secretary-General’s special representative on sexual violence in the conflict.
In their report, the experts said they found “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence led to Hamas’s entry into Israel, including rape and gang rape, occurred in at least three locations: Nova Music Festival site And the area around it, as well as Road 232 and Kibbutz Rim.
“In most of these incidents, the victims were first raped and then killed, and at least two incidents involved the rape of female corpses,” the report said.
The UN report, which also cites allegations that Palestinians detained by Israel have been sexually abused, comes three months after the New York Times published an extensive report on sexual abuse during the Hamas offensive. , including several incidents on Route 232. The leaders denied the accusations, and a UN report, noting the array of fighters who took part in the October 7 attack, said its experts had not been able to determine who was responsible for the sexual assaults.
In their report, UN experts cited instances of sexual violence that had not been widely reported before, including the sexual assault of a woman outside a bomb shelter at the entrance to Kibbutz Reim. The incident was confirmed by witness testimony and digital content, the report said.
Experts said they also found “a pattern of victims, mostly women, completely or partially naked, bound, and shot in multiple places.” Although the evidence was circumstantial, they said, the pattern could indicate some form of sexual violence and abuse.
When it came to the hostages captured in Israel and taken to Gaza, the report offered a more definitive conclusion.
It said it had received “clear and convincing information” based on first-hand accounts of freed hostages that sexual violence, including sexual violence, sexual violence, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The treatment was done against some women and children during their time of imprisonment. It also stated that there were reasonable grounds to believe that such ill-treatment was being committed against the hostages still being held.
Israel welcomed the report, which acknowledged that “the crimes were committed simultaneously in different locations and pointed to a pattern of rape, torture and sexual assault,” a foreign ministry spokesman said.
The UN report said its experts could not confirm reports of sexual violence at Kibbutz Kfar Aza or Kibbutz Beri. But in both places, it said, circumstantial information — “especially the repeated pattern of female victims found undressed, bound and shot,” for example, in Kfar al-Aza — indicated that sexual violence, including “possible sexual Violence,” can be. .
It said that two specific allegations of sexual violence in Kibbutz Beyari that were widely repeated by the media, however, were “baseless.”
First responders told the Times that bodies of women with signs of sexual abuse had been found at the two kibbutzim, but the Times, in its report, did not cite specific allegations, which the United Nations said were unfounded.
The UN report details what happened on the day of the attack.
To begin with, it was almost impossible to gain access to the type of forensic evidence often used to establish sexual assault. In part, this was due to the large number of casualties and widely dispersed attack sites.
The report also said that first responders – mostly untrained volunteers – focused more on search and rescue operations and recovery of the dead than on gathering evidence. And many bodies were badly burned, compromising any evidence.
Experts say that they have made calls to women in Israel who survived the attacks on October 7, but they have not spoken to anyone directly. A small number of survivors, they said, are reported to still be undergoing treatment for trauma.
They also noted a deep reservoir of Israeli skepticism toward international organizations such as the United Nations, as well as the fact that the team was on the ground for a limited period of two and a half weeks.
“Overall, the mission team believes that the true prevalence and consequences of sexual violence during the October 7 attacks may take months or years to emerge and may never be fully known,” the report said. .
The report states that the UN team has also heard incidents of sexual violence against Palestinians involving Israeli security forces and settlers.
Palestinian officials and representatives of civil society, it said, reported to the UN team “the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Palestinians in detention, including various forms of sexual violence including aggressive body searches, threats of rape, and prolonged forced nudity, as well as threats of sexual assault and rape, during home invasions and at checkpoints.
The UN team called on the Israeli government to provide access to other UN agencies, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, so that they can conduct a fully independent investigation into the allegations. can do
Foreign Ministry spokesman, Lever Hayat, said, “Israel rejects the report’s call for an investigation into Palestinian claims of ‘sexual violence by Israeli elements.’
Ms Payton said the purpose of her trip was not to investigate – 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 interview victims and witnesses of sexual violence, the report said.
Ms Payton said one of the challenges faced by UN experts was the lack of reliable information, and inaccurate accounts from untrained people.
“On the one hand,” he said, “we have a battlefield that often silences the grounds for sexual violence. But we’ve also seen in the history of war where sexual violence can be weaponized.