Israel has "systematically" destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities in Gaza while employing sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians since October 2023, amounting to genocidal acts, according to a report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
Thursday’s report, based on evidence gathered by the commission, details an alarming rise in sexual and gender-based violence across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, calling it a strategic tool used by Israel to dominate and terrorise Palestinians.
"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, chair of the commission.
The report highlights various forms of abuse, including forced public stripping, sexual harassment, threats of rape and sexual assault, which it describes as part of Israeli security forces’ standard operating procedures.
More severe violations, such as rape and violence to the genitals, were committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement from Israel’s top civilian and military leadership, the report alleges.
The commission also found that Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have committed sexual and gender-based crimes to instil fear and force Palestinian communities to flee, with little to no accountability from the Israeli justice system.
From March to April 2024, UN Women surveyed 305 women across Gaza’s five governorates, or regions, including 37 pregnant women. Of these pregnant women, 68 percent had experienced medical complications.
‘Genocidal acts’
Reacting to the report, Palestinian resistance group Hamas said that the UN inquiry confirmed Israel had committed "genocide and humanitarian" violations in the Palestinian territory during the war.
One of the most severe findings in the report is Israel’s systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities in Gaza.
The commission said Israeli forces have targeted maternity wards and Gaza’s only in-vitro fertility clinic while preventing humanitarian aid from reaching pregnant women and newborns.
These acts, the report said, amount to crimes against humanity, including extermination, by denying Palestinian women and girls access to reproductive healthcare.
"Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention," the report said.
The commission also documented a sharp increase in female fatalities in Gaza, attributing the deaths to Israel’s strategy of targeting residential buildings and using heavy explosives in densely populated areas.
Women and girls, including maternity patients, have been among those directly targeted, acts that the commission said constitute "the crime against humanity of murder and the war crime of willful killing."
The findings were presented alongside two days of public hearings in Geneva on March 11-12, where victims, witnesses, and medical personnel provided testimony.
Pillay emphasised the need for accountability, calling for the prosecution of perpetrators through the International Criminal Court and national courts under universal jurisdiction.
"The lack of action by Israel’s military justice system sends a clear message that members of the Israeli Security Forces can continue committing such acts without fear of accountability," she said.
Pregnant women in Gaza face a surge in birth defects and miscarriages as malnutrition, displacement, and exposure to banned weapons devastate maternal and neonatal health.
International courts already involved
Chris Sidoti, a member of the commission, told a press briefing in Geneva that the next steps regarding the report's findings involve courts, and the commission is already collaborating with the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
"We are working closely with the International Criminal Court. Our material is used by the International Court of Justice.
We saw in the advisory opinion that the International Court of Justice issued in July last year, our reports being quoted, not just frequently, but time and time again, at length, and the court's legal analysis being based very much upon our fact-finding," Sidoti said, voicing will to continue such collaboration.
He also reminded states about their obligations and urged them to take action without waiting for the UN Security Council as it would cause unforeseeable delay in going forward towards accountability.
"They (states) don't have to wait for action by the Security Council. If they waited for action by the Security Council, they'd be waiting until hell froze over," he said.
Asked about Israel's reaction to the report, Sidoti said he does "not take it very seriously," and accused Tel Aviv of "not reading our documents" as they "clearly have an agenda that they pursue."
"Fact, it's just chronic lying," he said.
The Israeli mission in Geneva said in a statement that it rejects the findings of the commission, calling it "unfounded allegations."
Forced to flee her home by Israeli bombardment, Asmaa Ahmed gave birth in the middle of the night in a Gaza City school that had no electricity.
