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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/un-exposes-systematic-zionist-rape-of-palestinians">english.almayadeen.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">UN Exposes Systematic Zionist Rape of Palestinians</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Kit Klarenberg</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">March 22, 2025</div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><p>The
UN Human Rights Commission's report exposes systematic sexual violence
by Israeli forces against Palestinians, describing it as a deliberate
policy aimed at dehumanization and suppression, with widespread impunity
and official endorsement.</p><img src="cid:ii_m8kdft280" alt="6361089e-b0f3-4c34-8c71-4dda0ac48de8.jpg" width="452" height="356"><br><div><ul id="gmail-content-slick-0"><div aria-hidden="false"><li>
The Western media remained deathly silent on this open
championing of rape as an instrument of terror (Illustrated by Batoul
Chamas to <strong>Al Mayadeen English</strong>)
</li></div></ul>
<p>On March 13th, the UN Human Rights High Commission published a <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/03/more-human-can-bear-israels-systematic-use-sexual-reproductive-and-other">horrifying report</a>
exposing in oft-emetic detail how the Zionist entity has employed
“sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against
Palestinians” on an industrial scale since the Gaza genocide erupted in
October 2023. The UN concludes these hideous acts are a central
component of Israel’s “broader effort to undermine [Palestinians’] right
to self-determination,” their systematic nature pointing unambiguously
to endorsement by Tel Aviv’s military and political leaders.</p>
<p>The report records, “sexual and gender-based violence is by no means a
new element of the Israeli occupation.” However, in the wake of October
7th, there has been a “sharp increase in sexual violence against
Palestinian women and men”, both by Zionist Occupation Forces (ZoF) and
settlers. The UN encountered no obstacles collecting voluminous highly
incriminating evidence of this vile abuse. In addition to a welter of
victim and witness testimony, perpetrators often voyeuristically
captured themselves and their confederates openly committing these
crimes on camera.</p>
<p>Frequently, these abhorrent images were pridefully posted on the
culprits’ personal social media accounts. Such actions amply attest to
the culture of total impunity in which ZOF soldiers literally rape and
pillage. “Despite the abundance of witness and digital evidence of
Israeli soldiers committing crimes in Gaza,” the UN found “there have
been no meaningful efforts by Israel to hold the perpetrators
accountable.” Requests submitted to Tel Aviv for clarity on
investigations into sexual violence committed by Occupation Forces have
been ignored:</p>
<p>“The Commission has not seen any evidence that Israeli authorities
have taken any effective measures to prevent or stop acts of sexual
violence or to identify and punish perpetrators.”</p>
<p>By contrast, the UN documented multiple statements by Zionist entity
officials actively supporting ZOF militants accused of sex crimes, and
“legitimizing rape and other forms of sexual violence” against
Palestinians, particularly detainees. That Israel’s rulers advocate
sexually-charged attacks on Palestinians is further reinforced by a
deliberate ZOF strike on a women’s rights centre in Gaza, in
mid-November 2023. The UN noted the broadside’s “clear gendered
dimension,” with soldiers daubing deeply offensive, sexist insults
directed at Palestinian women on the building’s inner walls in Hebrew.</p>
<p>Outside, ZOF tanks precisely blitzed the building’s fifth floor,
which provided shelter for women and families. That area was “completely
destroyed”, but the rest of the building “remained intact”. Mercifully,
the site and its surrounding area had been evacuated well in advance of
the attack, meaning no one was harmed. The Commission “did not find any
military justification” for the ZOF’s targeting of the centre. Yet,
from the Zionist entity’s perspective, it undoubtedly served a very
specific military <em>purpose</em>.</p>
<p>Collectively, the Commission’s conclusions point ineluctably to the
fact that sexuality and gender are now key, dedicated battlegrounds in
Israel’s unending erasure of the Palestinians, while sexual abuse, rape,
and resultant physical and psychological trauma are entrenched,
well-honed weapons in the Zionist entity’s Mephistophelian military
arsenal. Gravely, given Tel Aviv’s tendency <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt183pct7">to export</a>
its tools and methods of repression and mass murder abroad, the
implications of this grotesque evolution in modern warfare could be
global.</p>
<h2>‘Foreign Devices’</h2>
<p>The UN Commission report contains five separate sections on the
Zionist entity’s weaponisation of sexual abuse; “sexual harassment and
public shaming of Palestinian women”; “filming and photographing acts of
sexual violence against men and boys during arrest”; “sexual violence
during ground operations including at checkpoints and evacuations”;
“sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence in detention”;
“sexual and gender-based violence by settlers and other civilians.” Each
is rife with repulsive descriptions, and stomach-churning attestations.</p>
<p>While ranking circles of hell is a tawdry task, the section detailing
sexual violence directed towards male and female Palestinian detainees
is most vital to examine. The sheer scale of abuses documented, and
consistency of accounts provided by victims imprisoned in over 10
separate Israeli military detention facilities, means it cannot be
plausibly argued this savagery is aberrational, or attributable to
‘rogue’ ZOF militants or units. It can only be deliberate, determined
policy, signed off and directed at the highest levels.</p>
<p>From October 7th 2023 until July 2024, the UN Commission finds at
least 14,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank - among them
hundreds of women - were incarcerated by the ZOF. Many were not informed
of the reasons for their imprisonment. In case after case, “sexual
violence was used as a means of punishment and intimidation from the
moment of arrest and throughout [their] detention, including during
interrogations and searches”:</p>
<p>“Acts of sexual violence…appear to have been motivated by extreme
hatred towards the Palestinian people and a desire to dehumanize and
punish them…Forced nudity, with the aim of degrading and humiliating
victims in front of both soldiers and other detainees, was frequently
used…Male detainees reported ZOF personnel had beaten, kicked, pulled or
squeezed their genitals, often while they were naked…In some cases,
objects such as metal detectors and batons were used to brutalise them
while they were naked.”</p>
<p>The Commission documented widespread rape and sexual assault of male
detainees, “including the use of an electrical probe to cause burns to
the anus, and the insertion of objects, such as fingers, sticks,
broomsticks and vegetables, into the anus and rectum.” One victim was
suspended from the ceiling so only his toes touched a chair below, and
beaten with tools for hours. During the abuse, a “metal stick” was
inserted into his penis roughly 20 times until he began bleeding, before
fainting.</p>
<p>The Commission has determined that detainees were routinely subjected
to sexual abuse and harassment, and that threats of sexual assault and
rape were directed at detainees or their female family members. The
Commission received information about detainees being forced to undress
and lie on top of each other while subjected to verbal abuse and forced
to curse their mothers. They were beaten if they did not comply.</p>
<p>Female detainees were also subjected to sexual harassment, assault,
rape, and threats to their lives. One was told by a ZOF soldier he would
kill her and burn her children, asking: “How do you want us to rape
you? One by one or all together?”. Another was threatened with sexual
assault in front of her husband, before soldiers spat in her face and
beat her until she fainted. Several Palestinian women suffered the
heinous indignity of “foreign devices” being inserted into their vaginas
or rectums.</p>
<p>Female detainees moreover endured “repeated, prolonged and invasive
strip searches, both before and after interrogations.” One Palestinian
woman was strip searched in her cell every three hours during her
four-day detention, “even though she was menstruating.” Women were
regularly forced to remove all their clothes, including veils, in front
of male and female ZOF soldiers. Beatings and harassment, while being
bombarded with foul insults and sexual slurs, such as “bitch” and
“whore”, were also commonplace.</p>
<h2>‘Terrible Injustice’</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240729-10-israeli-soldiers-detained-for-abusing-gazan-detainee-at-sde-teiman-prison/">July 2024</a>,
10 ZOF soldiers were arrested after subjecting a male Palestinian
detainee to such vicious sexual violence, he required urgent surgery.
The Commission finds this was by no means an isolated incident since
October 7th, but it remains the only instance to date of a victim’s
tormentors facing repercussions for their unconscionable abuse. Still,
the UN refers to this sordid case as “an illustrative example of the
culture of impunity” rampant within the Zionist entity’s military and
security apparatus:</p>
<p>“Five soldiers were released without charge within a few days and
five others were placed under house arrest. In September 2024, a
military court eased the conditions of their house arrest, removing the
requirement for them to be accompanied by a supervisor during their
night-time house arrest and allowing them to submit requests for release
during the holidays.”</p>
<p>A since-published <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/5-idf-reservists-indicted-for-severe-abuse-of-palestinian-detainee-at-sde-teiman/">indictment</a>
records how the five accused soldiers burst into the man’s cell at Sde
Teiman detention facility, beat him with batons and tasered him in the
head, before forcibly inserting a baton into his mouth, all while
intimidating him with a dog. He was also stabbed in the rectum with a
sharp object. The attack left the Palestinian with several fractured
ribs, a punctured lung, and other life-threatening injuries.</p>
<p>Unmentioned in the report, the initial arrest of the 10 ZOF soldiers
responsible for this gruesome barbarity elicited outrage among Israeli
citizens, leading to <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2q07kd3ld6o">mass protests</a> demanding their release. Nonetheless, the Commission did record how several high-ranking Zionist entity officials <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/9/everything-is-legitimate-israeli-leaders-defend-soldiers-accused-of-rape">expressed outrage</a>
at the soldiers’ arrests. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said they
had suffered “terrible injustice”. National Security Minister Itamar
Ben-Gvir stated it was “shameful” that Tel Aviv’s “best heroes” had been
subject to such “vicious persecution.”</p>
<p>The Western media remained deathly silent on this open championing of
rape as an instrument of terror. The UN Commission’s disturbing
findings have likewise fallen on mainstream deaf ears. As ever, news
outlets, and the Zionist entity’s Western puppet masters, are complicit
by their silence - and it is precisely this silence that encourages and
safeguards the ZOF’s culture of impunity. As a result, we can expect the
“sharp increase in sexual violence against Palestinian women and men”
to only increase in future.</p>
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