UN inquiry concludes that Israel used 'systematic sexual violence' in Gaza
Israel has committed “genocidal acts” through the systematic destruction of women’s healthcare facilities in Gaza, UN experts said in a major new report on Thursday.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, found that Israel’s systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, coupled with restricted medical supplies, resulted in a surge in maternal deaths, and is therefore tantamount to the crime of extermination.
Additionally, the report said that Israel’s direct targeting of women’s healthcare facilities has resulted in “irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and reproductive and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a group”.
This, the commission concluded, amounts to two categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.
They include deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
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An obstetrician in Gaza who spoke to the commission described the violations as a “war against women”.
“Giving birth in Gaza is like giving birth in the Middle Ages. There is no access to neonatal, prenatal or post-partum care,” another obstetrician quoted in the report said.
“Basic equipment for childbirth, such as forceps, is not available, nor are crucial drugs such as hypertension medication to treat common and serious conditions such as preeclampsia. As a result, maternal morbidity, stillbirths, and miscarriages have increased.”
According to the report, a lack of pain relief medication particularly impacted women who had undergone Cesarean sections, who were forced to endure the procedure without it.
Medical personnel reported that the combined lack of space, medication and equipment was resulting in an increasing number of maternal deaths.
Meanwhile, the inaccessibility of healthcare services compelled many women to resort to unsafe deliveries at homes or in shelters.
‘She was left there bleeding’
The commission found that the surge in female fatalities in the strip since October - over double the proportion of deaths in the 2008 conflict - is also driven by the increased use of heavy aerial bombardment and the targeting of residential buildings, which disproportionately impacts women.
It noted that the spike could also be due to the Israeli military’s strategy of targeting private homes with the stated aim of killing militants, resulting in entire families killed together.
A lactation consultant in Gaza told the commission of a new mother who was killed with her twins in August 2024:
“One of my patients had just given birth to twins when her apartment was attacked. The attack happened while the father was at a local government office to register the birth.
“The woman and her newborns were killed instantly in the attack. The grief following her death was amplified by the fact that there was no militant in sight.”
The commission also cites multiple cases of the “deliberate targeting and killing of civilian women and girls” by Israeli forces in Gaza.
A witness from al-Awda hospital reported that they saw a pregnant woman being shot and killed as she was approaching the hospital.
“She was left there bleeding. Nobody managed to rescue her as the hospital was under siege by the Israeli forces. She was found in a decomposed state about 20 days later,” they said.
The report also found a “deplorable increase in sexual and gender based violence” employed against Palestinian women, men, girls and boys across occupied Palestine since 7 October 2023 to “terrorise them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self determination”.
The report details how some acts of sexual gender-based violence, including forced public stripping, form part of the Israeli security forces’ standard operating procedures, while others, including rape and violence to genitals, were committed “under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement” by Israel’s top civilian and military leadership.
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