Giorgos Mitralias
CounterPunch / April 11, 2025
The report by the UN Independent Commission* on Israel’s sexual and reproductive crimes against Palestinians confirms what we already knew: the Zionist state systematically and massively uses sexual violence against Palestinian women, men, girls and boys!
But the report also tells us something else: these sexual and reproductive crimes committed by Israel are an integral part of the Zionist state’s genocidal plan, along with the constant bombardment and murder of tens of thousands of civilians, the systematic destruction of all the infrastructures of their daily lives and the repeated mass displacement of the population of Gaza.
It’s no coincidence, then, that this report refers to the famine organized by Israel affecting the population of Gaza, underlining that “the use of starvation as a method of war, has impacted all aspects of reproduction”. In other words, on all aspects of what constitutes the major – and still unsolved – problem of the Zionist project: the persistence of Palestinian women to give birth to little Palestinians!
So, let’s talk about this programmed, well-organized famine against the Palestinians in Gaza, which is still being implemented, and which completes the Netanyahu government’s genocidal project. A project that resembles the one implemented in the then Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, which exterminated at least 7 million Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian and Jewish Soviet soldiers and civilians, by means of organized famine. And the main reason why the Nazi famine of the time and the Zionist famine of today are so similar is that both served and still serve a common, publicly declared project: the extermination of the indigenous population in order to empty, annex and colonize its territories with their own settlers!
So let’s not forget that, even as we read these lines, a whole people, not so far from Crete, is slowly dying of hunger and thirst, deprived of medicines, doctors and hospitals, while being the target of live-fire exercises by the Israeli army aimed at refugee tents and the interminable ruins of Gaza, which have nothing to envy to those of Dresden or Berlin in 1945. Let’s not forget…
Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since October 2023
GENEVA – Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination and carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities, according to a new report issued today by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel.
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 terrorize 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, including rape and violence to the genitals, 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.
Women and girls have died from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth due to the conditions imposed by the Israeli authorities which have denied access to reproductive health care – acts which amount to the crime against humanity of extermination.
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 targeting of reproductive healthcare facilities, including through direct attacks on maternity wards and Gaza’s main in-vitro fertility clinic, combined with the use of starvation as a method of war, has impacted all aspects of reproduction,” said Commissioner Pillay. “These violations have not only caused severe immediate physical and mental harm and suffering to women and girls, but irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and reproductive and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a group.”
The Commission 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 wilful killing.
Background: The UN Human Rights Council mandated the Commission on 27 May 2021 to “investigate, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel, all alleged violations of international humanitarian law and all alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021.” Resolution A/HRC/RES/S-30/1 further requested the Commission of inquiry to “investigate all underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict, including systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity.” The Commission of Inquiry was mandated to report to the Human
Rights Council and the General Assembly annually commencing from June 2022 and September 2022, respectively.
Giorgos Mitralias is a Greek journalist
