UN Experts Accuse Israel Of Genocide Actions And Sexual Violence In Gaza

Israeli military operations in Gaza. (Source: Israel Defense Forces)

JAKARTA - Israel has committed "voluntary acts" against Palestinians by systematically destroying women's health care facilities during the conflict in Gaza, using sexual violence as a war strategy, UN experts said in a new report on Thursday.

"Israeli authorities have destroyed some of the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing actions intended to prevent birth, one category of genocide in Rome's Statutes and the Genocide Convention," the UN Independent International Investigation Commission said in the occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem and Israel. March 13.

These actions, apart from the surge in maternal mortality due to limited access to medical supplies, constitute crimes against humanity in the form of culling, the commission said.

The report alleges Israeli security forces are using body sanitizers in public and sexual violence, as part of their standard operating procedures to punish Palestinians after Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel in October 2023.

Israel rejects the allegations. Israel's fixed mission to the United Nations in Geneva described the allegations in the report as baseless, biased and less credible.

"IDF has concrete directions and policies that expressly prohibit these violations," the mission said in a statement, adding its review process was in line with international standards.

Previous reports published by the Commission in June 2024 accused Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups of serious human rights abuses in their attacks on October 7, 2023, including torture and degrading treatment.

Israel is known to be a party to the Genocide Convention and was ordered in January 2024 by the International Court to take action to prevent genocide during the war against Hamas.

On the other hand, Israel is not a party to Rome's Statute, which gives jurisdiction to the International Criminal Court to decide individual criminal cases involving genocide and crimes against humanity.