UN experts accuse Israel of ‘genocidal acts’ and sexual violence

UN experts have accused Israel to use sexual and gender violence against the Palestinians more and “genocidal acts” through the systematic destruction of maternal and reproductive health facilities.

A report commissioned by the documents of the UN Human Rights Council, alleged violations, including rape, in Gaza and the West Bank occupied since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 against Israel triggered Gaza’s war.

He also says that the destruction of maternity neighborhoods in Gaza and embryos in a fertility clinic could indicate a strategy to prevent births between a private group, one of the legal definitions of genocide.

Israel said that “categorically rejects the unfounded accusations.”

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded angry, describing the Human Rights Council “an anti -Semitic body, rotten, that supports and irrelevant.”

Instead of focusing on war crimes committed by Hamas, he said, he was attacking Israel with “false accusations.”

WARNING: This article contains distressing content

The International Independent Research Commission on the occupied Palestinian territory was established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021 to investigate all the alleged violations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law.

The Tres Member Commission said its new report It was based on the testimony of the victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence, some of which spoke for two days of public audiences held in Geneva earlier this week, as well as verified photos and video images, and information of civil society and women’s rights organizations.

The president of the Commission, Navi Pillay, a former Human Rights Chief of the UN South African, said that the evidence collected “reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender violence” who said he was being used by Israel against the Palestinians “to terrorize them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines his right to self -determination.”

The report says specific forms of sexual violence and based on gender, such as forced public extraction and nudity, sexual harassment, including threats of rape, as well as sexual aggression, “understand part of the standard operational procedures of Israeli security forces towards the Palestinians.”

Other forms of such violence, including the violation and violence for the genitals, were “committed under explicit orders or with the stimulus implicit by the main civil and military leadership of Israel,” he alleges.

The report does not provide examples of explicit orders of commanders or senior officials. But cites statements of Israeli ministers who defended Soldiers who were accused of severely mistreating a Palestinian detainee in the military base of Sde Teiman last year.

The member of the commission, Chris Fari, an Australian human rights lawyer, told the BBC: “Sexual violence is now extended that it can only be considered systematic. It is beyond the level of random acts of dishonest individuals.”

Israel has rejected accusations of generalized abuse and torture of detainees from Gaza, and insisted that it is totally committed to international legal standards.

The report says that the commission also found that the Israeli forces had systematically destroyed sex and reproductive health facilities in Gaza during the 17 -month war there.

He concludes that women and girls have died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth due to the conditions imposed by the Israeli authorities who have denied access to reproductive health care, and says they are equivalent to the crime against humanity of extermination.

The commission also alleges that the Israeli authorities have “partly destroyed the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group” through the “systematic destruction” of the sexual and reproductive health facilities, including maternity hospitals and the neighborhoods of the maternity of hospitals and the main fertility clinic in Vitro de Gaza, the Al-Basma IVF center in the city of Gaza.

This is equivalent to “two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including deliberately inflicting living conditions calculated to achieve the physical destruction of the Palestinians and impose measures aimed at preventing births,” he concludes.

According to the report, the Laboratory of Embryology in Al-Basma was reached in early December 2023, according to reports, destroying about 4,000 embryos, as well as 1,000 signs of sperm and non-fertilized eggs.

He says that the commission determined through the visual analysis of images that the damage was caused by a large -caliber projectile, most likely an Israeli tank peel, and was intentionally attacked by Israeli forces. However, the Israeli army told ABC News at that time that it was not aware of a strike in the clinic. The BBC has contacted the IDFs to comment.

“The deliberate destruction of a health center is a serious problem for international humanitarian law and the right of human rights. But from our analysis of the attack on this clinic, it was known and intentionally to the destruction of reproductive services,” said Servi. “The consequence of this is the prevention of births.”

In a statementIsrael’s mission to the UN in Geneva said that the report was “a shameless attempt to incriminate the (Israel Defense Forces) and manufacture the illusion of the ‘systemic’ use of (sexual and gender violence).”

He criticized what he called the decision of the commission to use “information from sources without second -hand corroborated”, which he said was inconsistent with established norms and methodologies of the UN.

The statement also emphasized that IDF had “concrete directives, procedures, orders and policies, which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct”, as well as mechanisms to investigate any incident of alleged sexual violence.

The Prime Minister of Israel also rejected the reports of the report and described the Human Rights Council as an “antiisraeli circus.”

“Instead of focusing on crimes against humanity and war crimes that were perpetrated by Hamas’ terrorist organization in the worst massacre carried out against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN has chosen again to attack the state of Israel with false accusations, including accusations unfounded of sexual violence,” said Netanyahu.

The International Court of Justice listens to a case bought by South Africa that accuses Israeli forces of committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel has vehemently denied the accusation.

The Israeli army launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross -border attack on October 7, 2023, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken as hostages.

Since then, more than 48,520 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health of the territory.

Most of the population of 2.1 million Gaza has also been displaced several times. It is estimated that almost 70% of buildings are damaged or destroyed; Medical, water, sanitation and hygiene systems have collapsed; And there is food shortages, fuel, medicine and refuge.