Israel's systematic use of sexual and other forms of gender-based violence since October 2023

The report, titled “More Than a Human Can Bear,” emphasizes that sexual violence committed by Israeli security forces and settlers against Palestinian women, men and children is not an isolated incident, but part of a pattern of structural and discriminatory oppression imposed by the occupying power on Palestinians.

The report documents a broad range of violations perpetrated against Palestinian women, men, girls and boys across the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 7 October 2023 that constitutes a major element in the ill-treatment of Palestinians and are part of the unlawful occupation and persecution of Palestinians as a group.  

“The evidence collected by the Commission reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission. “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.”     

The release of the report was accompanied by two days of public hearings held in Geneva on 11-12 March, during which the Commission heard from victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as representatives from civil society, academics, lawyers and medical experts. 

The report found that sexual and gender-based violence – which has risen in frequency and severity – is being perpetrated across the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a strategy of war for Israel to dominate and destroy the Palestinian people.

Specific forms of sexual and gender-based violence – such as forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault – comprise part of the Israeli Security Forces’ standard operating procedures toward Palestinians. 

Other forms of sexual and gender-based violence were committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership, the report said. 

A climate of impunity also exists with regard to sexual and gender-based crimes committed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, with the aim of instilling fear into the Palestinian community and expelling them.

“The exculpatory statements and actions by Israeli leaders and the lack of effectiveness shown by the military justice system to prosecute cases and convict perpetrators send a clear message to members of the Israeli Security Forces that they can continue committing such acts without fear of accountability,” said Pillay. “In this context, accountability through the International Criminal Court and national courts, through their domestic law or exercising universal jurisdiction, is essential if the rule of law is to be upheld and victims awarded justice.”

The Commission found that Israeli forces have systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza. They have simultaneously imposed a siege and prevented humanitarian assistance, including the provision of necessary medication and equipment to ensure safe pregnancies, deliveries and post-partum and neonatal care. These acts violate women’s and girls’ reproductive rights and autonomy, as well as their right to life, health, founding a family, human dignity, physical and mental integrity, freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and self-determination and the principle of non-discrimination. 

The Commission found that Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in Gaza as a group through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare, amounting to two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention, including deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births.    

The Commission also found an increasing proportion of female fatalities in Gaza, which have occurred at an unprecedented scale as a result of an Israeli strategy of deliberately targeting residential buildings and using heavy explosives in densely populated areas. The Commission also documented cases in which women and girls of all ages, including maternity patients, were targeted - acts that constitute the crime against humanity of murder and the war crime of willful killing.