The report comes in the wake of Israeli fury over the lack of U.N. action on accusations of Hamas’s sexual violence on Oct. 7.
ISRAEL 365 NEWS
There is “clear and convincing” evidence that terrorists committed sexual violence, including rape, against hostages in Gaza, and there are “reasonable grounds” to conclude that terrorists raped and gang raped Israeli women in multiple locations on Oct. 7, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.
“With respect to hostages, the mission team found clear and convincing information that some have been subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence including rape and sexualized torture and sexualized cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,” according to the report, “and it also has reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing.”
“At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of sexual violence took place with victims being subjected to rape and/or gang rape, and then killed or killed while being raped,” the report stated. It added that there are also “reasonable grounds” to think that sexual violence, including rape, occurred on Road 232, on which people fled from the festival, and at Kibbutz Re’im, where they sought shelter.
“Reasonable grounds to believe” is the “primary standard of proof” used in the report, it stated. It added that “clear and convincing” refers to “evidence rises above ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ yet falls below ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’” Nowhere in the report does it state that any of the detailed violence is true “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
“Our conclusions are based on our own assessments of the credibility of witnesses, verification of sources and cross-referencing material,” said Pramila Patten, the U.N. secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence and conflict.
Patten’s team also found a pattern of victims, mostly women, found fully or partially naked, bound and shot across multiple locations that “may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.”
‘Months or years’
U.N. leadership and several of its agencies have come under extreme fire from Israel and others for refusing for months to acknowledge claims of sexual violence during Hamas terrorists’ killing and hostage-taking spree.
Patten visited Israel, Judea and Samaria for 17 days in late January and early February at the Israeli government’s invitation.
During a Monday press release, she stressed repeatedly that her mission was not to investigate. She and a team of nine experts went to collect information, including during 33 meetings with Israeli representatives and 34 confidential interviews—with survivors and witnesses, released hostages, first responders and others—and examining more than 5,000 photos and 50 hours of video footage.
The team included “specialists trained in safe and ethical interviewing of survivors and victims and witnesses of sexual violence crimes, a forensic pathologist, and a digital and open-source information analyst,” Patten said.
The true and full extent of sexual violence committed on Oct. 7 and in its aftermath could “take months or years to emerge, and may never be fully known,” Patten said, citing a lack of forensic evidence collected in the immediate chaotic hours following the massacre, the alteration of crime scenes, excessive burning of some victims and the lack of forensic collection training of some first responder volunteers.
Patten did not speak directly with victims of sexual assault on Oct. 7. She said she was told that several were undergoing treatment for trauma and were unavailable to speak with her while she was in Israel.
In response to a JNS question, Patten said she has asked the Israeli government about a follow-up mission, during which her office would speak directly with victims who are ready to do so, as well as hostages who have been released from Gaza. Jerusalem has not yet responded, she said.
The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and its Commission of Inquiry on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should carry out a legal investigation, Patten said. That commission has drawn extensive criticism—from Israel and other nations—for the composition of its membership and its open-ended mandate with an extensive budget.
‘I didn’t have a chaperone’
Patten said her team only gathered information about sexual crimes within a scope about which it agreed in advance with Israel.
The team found some reported claims, including that terrorists cut an unborn baby out of a pregnant woman’s stomach on Oct. 7, to be unfounded.
Patten said that the “credible” information in the report was insufficient to assign crimes specifically to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or to Gazan civilians who are believed to have participated in the massacre.
Israel didn’t interfere with her team’s efforts to gather information. “I didn’t have a chaperone,” she said.
Patten also traveled to Ramallah to meet those who accused Israeli security forces of rape. The report mentions threats but not rape itself.
“While no instances of rape were reported, Palestinian women’s organizations consistently stressed that in addition to intimidation and insecurity, the high level of stigmatization, conservative cultural norms and the power imbalance in the context of occupation impedes reporting of sexual violence,” the report stated.
Patten didn’t publish a specific number of sexual crimes committed to avoid the report being sensationalized or politicized, she told reporters on Monday.
JNS asked Patten at the press conference what António Guterres, the U.N. secretary-general, and the U.N. Security Council ought to do next, now that they possess her report.
Patten said only that the report was more cause to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
