Hamas Rejects UN Report; Israel Opposes Cooperation in Further Investigation

By Geoff Mirelowitz

In early March, Pramila Patten, United Nations (UN) Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict (SRSG-SVC), issued a report on the Official visit of the Office of the SRSG-SVC to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

The report concluded:

Overall, based on the totality of information gathered from multiple and independent sources at the different locations, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gaza periphery, including in the form of rape and gang rape, during the 7 October 2023 attacks. Credible circumstantial information, which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, was also gathered.

From UN report

Further it stated:

The mission team was unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would require a fully-fledged investigation (emphasis added).

From UN report

This was underscored in press accounts of the report’s release. “The mission, led by Ms. Patten along with nine experts,” wrote the BBC on its website, “was not investigative in nature, but designed to gather and verify allegations, the UN said.”

NEWS ANALYSIS

The BBC reported the mission finding that “some allegations of rape and sexual violence were ‘unfounded,’ … including the graphically publicised case of a pregnant woman whose womb was reportedly torn open and her foetus stabbed. Other reports could not be verified due to limited imagery.”

Allegations of sexual violence against Palestinians

The UN report also noted, “Regarding the occupied Palestinian Territory, while its scope did not extend to verification, the mission team received information from institutional and civil society sources as well as through direct interviews, about some forms of sexual violence against Palestinian men and women in detention settings, during house raids and at checkpoints. Though the mission team did not visit Gaza, the Office of the SRSG-SVC will continue to monitor the situation for any relevant allegations of CRSV [conflict-related sexual violence] in the context of the ongoing hostilities.”

In testimonies documented recently by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor and released in February, Palestinian women from the Gaza Strip have reported being subjected to strip searches, sexual harassment, sexual violence, torture, and threats of rape while being arrested and held by Israeli army forces.

The UN team’s list of recommendations urged “all parties to the conflict to adopt a humanitarian ceasefire, and to ensure that expertise on addressing conflict-related sexual violence informs the design and implementation of all ceasefire and political agreements and that the voices of women and affected communities are heard in all conflict resolution and peacebuilding processes.”

The governments of the United States, Britain, France, and Israel called for Patten to brief the UN Security Council, with Israel claiming there was an effort to cover up Hamas crimes. A special hearing took place on March 11.

The next day, an article in the Israeli daily Haaretz reported on the hearing. “There has been no attempt by the [UN] secretary-general to silence my report or suppress its findings,” Patten asserted, responding to Israeli government charges. “On the contrary,” she added, “I received his full support, politically, logistically, and financially; and he also gave clear instructions for the public release of my report.”

Acknowledging the families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza in attendance, Patten said: “Try to imagine yourselves for one moment in the shoes of the hostages’ families, who are torn between despair and hope. 156 days have passed since the kidnapping. There are no less than 16 women in captivity. What can we tell their families?” Patten noted that she has witnessed “scenes of unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality, against Israelis.”

“Patten added,” wrote Haaretz, “that taking people hostage is ‘prohibited according to international law’ and emphasized that the report findings state that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred at several locations during the attack by Hamas. She added that these findings, however, do not ‘legitimize further hostilities’ but ‘create a moral imperative for a humanitarian cease-fire.’”

Referring to the West Bank, Haaretz continued, “Patten said that she witnessed ‘a climate of intense fear and insecurity.’ She also mentioned that while she ‘did not receive any reports of rape, interlocutors raised with me instances of sexual violence in the context of detention of male and female Palestinians.’”

Israel and Hamas respond

“Israel welcomes the definitive recognition that Hamas committed sexual crimes,” said Lior Haiat, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman. But in keeping with his government’s hostility to the UN, he rebuked even the mention of the West Bank allegations in the UN report. “That is a derisive and deliberate Palestinian manoeuvre aimed at creating an intolerable equivalence between the horrific crimes that were committed, and continue to be committed, by Hamas and malicious and baseless claims made against Israel and Israelis,” said Haiat.

“Mr Haiat also said Israel opposed a recommendation made in the report that the country co-operate with the UN’s international Commission of Inquiry, which is trying to conduct an investigation into potential war crimes on all sides,” the BBC added.

Hamas, according to the BBC, rejected the UN report as “baseless and only aimed at demonising the Palestinian resistance.”

World-Outlook had already reported on these issues, prior to the release of the UN report, republishing the Open Letter to Israeli & U.S. Governments on Issue of Rape, and the article Rape as a War Crime and the Need for Accurate Reporting.

The Open Letter, initiated by U.S.-based anti-Zionist feminists, affirmed, “We support the investigation initiated by the highly-qualified members of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry into the entire range of war crimes committed during both the October 7 Hamas attack and the Israeli state’s subsequent assault on Gaza.”

The second article included reposting an investigative piece by The Intercept published on February 28, ‘Between the Hammer and the Anvil’ – The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Exposé. It detailed faulty reporting by the New York Times regarding charges of rape and sexual assault on October 7, explaining:

The question has never been whether individual acts of sexual assault may have occurred on October 7. Rape is not uncommon in war, and there were also several hundred civilians who poured into Israel from Gaza that day in a ‘second wave,’ contributing to and participating in the mayhem and violence. The central issue is whether the New York Times presented solid evidence to support its claim that there were newly reported details ‘establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7’ — a claim stated in the headline that Hamas deliberately deployed sexual violence as a weapon of war.

From February 28 article by The Intercept.

On March 1, a Times spokesperson defended the paper’s December 28 story, Screams Without Words: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on October 7: “We remain confident in the accuracy of our reporting and stand by the team’s investigation which was rigorously reported, sourced and edited.”

New evidence refutes NY Times

So, it is noteworthy that on March 25 the Times published, less than prominently, the article Israeli Soldier’s Video Undercuts Medic’s Account of Sexual Assault; Kibbutz residents concluded that two sisters killed on Oct. 7 were not victims of sexual violence. The account referenced in this story allegedly occurred at Kibbutz Be’eri and was included in the December 28 Times piece criticized by The Intercept.

The March 25 Times article opened with this statement, “New video has surfaced that undercuts the account of an Israeli military paramedic who said two teenagers killed in the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7 were sexually assaulted.

“The unnamed paramedic, from an Israeli commando unit, was among dozens of people interviewed for a Dec. 28 article by The New York Times that examined sexual violence on Oct. 7.”

It added, “The Associated Press, CNN and The Washington Post reported similar accounts from a military paramedic who spoke on condition of anonymity…. The paramedic’s account was a prominent example in international news reports describing sexual violence on Oct. 7.”

“But footage taken by an Israeli soldier who was in Be’eri on Oct. 7, which was viewed by leading community members in February and by The Times this month,” the paper now admits, “shows the bodies of three female victims, fully clothed and with no apparent signs of sexual violence, at a home where many residents had believed the assaults occurred.”

“Reached by The Times,” the article continued, “the medic declined to say whether he still stood by the account, saying he would like to put the attacks behind him.

“Later, an Israeli military spokesman said that the medic stood by his testimony but might have misremembered the place where he saw the teenage girls.”

The UN report had earlier challenged these allegations, a fact the Times has now conceded, writing, “The report said the U.N. team was unable to establish whether sexual violence occurred in Be’eri and that at least two Be’eri cases reported in the news media were determined to be ‘unfounded,’ but it did not explicitly specify a military paramedic’s account.”

The Times also noted that the UN report said its team “‘received credible information’ about bodies found naked, tied or gagged in Be’eri and that ‘circumstantial evidence — notably the pattern of female victims found undressed and bound — may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.’”

The Times article also pointed to what members of the kibbutz have done to determine what may have happened. Be’eri was a scene of horror on October 7. That does not appear to be in serious dispute. The civilian death toll there reached 97. But referring to the alleged rapes, Nili Bar Sinai, a member of a group from the kibbutz that looked into claims of sexual assault at the house, stated, “This story is false.”

“What happened to them was horrifying, but it was a great relief to find out they weren’t sexually assaulted,” Bar Sinai said.

“Until recently, we all thought it was true,” added Amit Solvy, a neighbor.

This supports the UN report’s conclusions that there is credible evidence of sexual violence perpetrated by the assailants during the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel. However, a number of the allegations by the Israeli government, media, and individuals can not be confirmed or have been proven false.

New allegation from released Israeli hostage

On March 26, the Times published another article, Israeli Hostage Says She Was Sexually Assaulted and Tortured in Gaza. Amit Soussana, it reported, “is the first former hostage to publicly say she was sexually abused in captivity.”

The Times said that during an eight-hour interview Sousanna “provided extensive details of sexual and other violence she suffered during a 55-day ordeal.”

The alleged sexual assault took place several days after she was taken hostage on October 7. After being allowed access to a bathroom, Sousanna undressed to wash herself. Then “Muhammad [her captor] returned and stood in the doorway, holding a pistol,” she told the Times.

“‘He came towards me and shoved the gun at my forehead,’ Ms. Soussana recalled. After hitting Ms. Soussana and forcing her to remove her towel, Muhammad groped her, sat her on the edge of the bathtub and hit her again, she said.

“He dragged her at gunpoint back to the child’s bedroom, a room covered in images of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants, she recalled.

“‘Then he, with the gun pointed at me, forced me to commit a sexual act on him,’ Ms. Soussana said.

“Ms. Soussana’s personal account of her experience in captivity,” said the Times, “is consistent with what she told two doctors and a social worker less than 24 hours after she was freed on Nov. 30. Their reports about her account state the nature of the sexual act; The Times agreed not to disclose the specifics.”

The Times reported further that “a spokesman for Hamas, Basem Naim, said in a 1,300-word response to The Times that it was essential for the group to investigate Ms. Soussana’s allegations, but that such an inquiry was impossible in ‘the current circumstances.’”

However, the article reported, Naim “cast doubt on Ms. Soussana’s account, questioning why she had not spoken publicly about the extent of her mistreatment. He said the level of detail in her account makes ‘it difficult to believe the story, unless it was designed by some security officers.’”

Others, however, will likely view the detailed nature of Soussana’s charges the opposite way. Women who make allegations of rape are often challenged to provide details but, in the immediate aftermath of traumatic violence, human beings often do not recall all such details. Here Sousanna is accused of providing too great a “level of detail.” But it is precisely because she is able to provide so much information about what she says happened to her that many will find her account credible.

It should be noted that the UN report contains a very specific section titled, “Sexual Violence Against Hostages Taken to Gaza.”^[1]  It reads:

“The mission team reviewed incidents of alleged sexual violence related to hostages in Gaza. Based on the first-hand accounts of released hostages, the mission team received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity and has reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may be ongoing.

“Based on first-hand accounts of released hostages there are reasonable grounds to believe that female hostages were also subjected to other forms of sexual violence.”

From UN report

“Fully-fledged investigation” needed

As Pramila Patten and the UN reporting team have affirmed, a “fully-fledged investigation” remains necessary to help establish the truth. Such an effort would require a serious review of all allegations of rape and sexual violence — whether by Israelis or Palestinians. That is necessary both to provide some degree of justice for those who may have suffered such assaults and to determine, if assaults did occur, whether they were systematic in nature or the crimes of individuals.

The UN report acknowledges the many challenges in getting to the truth. These include the fact that some alleged victims were murdered, and others may not be willing to discuss their experiences. As a result, the report noted, “the true extent of the sexual violence on October 7 and its aftermath may be revealed within months, years and may never be fully known.”

Nevertheless, the effort must be made.

NOTES

[1] See p. 18 of the UN report.

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