Israel’s Foreign Ministry expressed outrage on Tuesday after a United Nations report on sexual violence in wartime failed to list Hamas terrorists as participating actors.
The summary, titled “Conflict-Related Sexual Violence,” comes as the U.N.’s own gender violence chief, Pramila Patten, released a scathing and detailed report on the fate of many of the female victims of the October 7 massacre.
Patten determined in her March investigation that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of rape, including gang rape, occurred in and around the Nova festival site during the 7 October attacks” and that there are “reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred in Kibbutz Re’im, including rape.”
In addition, the Special Representative’s findings showed that evidence “indicates that sexual violence, including potential sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, may have occurred” in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, and “there are reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred on and around Road 232.”
In so far as the fate of the hostages in Gaza is concerned, Patten and her investigators “received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity and has reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may be ongoing.”
In concluding comments, the report noted that at least 100 of the murdered victims had such severe body mutilations that there could be no determination as to their classification as rape victims.
In response to the exclusion of the Gaza-based terror group, Israel’s Foreign Minister, Israel Katz, accused U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres of standing “shoulder to shoulder with the rapists and murderers of Hamas.”
Katz’s condemnation was further expressed when he said in a statement that he was “convinced that if the crimes of the Nazi regime had come up for discussion during his tenure, he would have refused to condemn them as well, if his political interests demanded that.”
Guterres defended his organization by claiming that Patten’s efforts were “not being investigative in nature and given its limited duration, did not draw conclusions on attribution to specific armed groups or determine prevalence of incidents of conflict-related sexual violence during and after the attacks of 7 October. Such a determination would require a fully-fledged investigation.”
On April 12, the European Union imposed sanctions on Hamas and Islamic Jihad after they determined that the two factions “committed widespread sexual and gender-based violence in a systematic manner, using it as a weapon of war.,” and “targeted [the] abduction of women and girls."
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