Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Palestinians in the Gaza War

More than 20 cases involving Palestinian men and women in more than 10 Israeli military and Israel Prison Service facilities formed part of the findings published in the UN commission of inquiry’s report A/79/232.[1] The facilities highlighted included Negev prison and Sde Teiman camp for male detainees, and Damon and Hasharon prisons for female detainees.[1] The reported conduct extended from arrest through detention, including transfers, searches, and interrogations, and was associated in the findings with punishment, humiliation, and intimidation.[1]

The subject includes several distinct categories of reported conduct: unwanted intimate touching, genital violence, rape and attempted rape, degrading strip searches, prolonged forced nudity, sexual threats, and photographing detainees in humiliating circumstances.[1][4] A further category in the March 2025 inquiry concerned reproductive violence, including alleged damage to fertility and maternity facilities and restrictions affecting access to reproductive healthcare.[2][7] These reproductive-health allegations concerned effects on pregnancy, childbirth, and reproductive capacity, rather than only direct physical assaults on individual detainees.[2][7]

The geographical scope of the available reporting is broader than Gaza alone: detention accounts include Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — East Jerusalem, and Israel.[5][8] Some sources concern detention inside Israel, while others describe military operations, checkpoints, or the treatment of people detained within Gaza.[4][9] The 2026 count of verified incidents likewise covered Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank, rather than a Gaza-only population.[4]

The evidence base includes detainee testimony, interviews with released prisoners, medical records and security-camera footage in the Sde Teiman investigation, digital material, and submissions by human-rights organizations.[1][3][8] Different publications used different populations and evidentiary categories: interview samples, reported allegations, commission findings, and incidents described as verified are not presented as one comprehensive count.[1][4][8] Israeli authorities maintained that abuse was prohibited, rejected claims of a systematic policy, and stated that specific complaints were subject to examination or military-police investigation.[5][10]

Accounts concerning detention after October 7, 2023, appeared in the United States’ 2023 human-rights reporting, published on April 22, 2024.[11] The concerns included severe physical assaults, sexual harassment, intimidation of children and adult detainees, and humiliating treatment in Israeli facilities.[11] Four organizations—HaMoked, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, and Adalah—highlighted 19 reported cases of severe abuse, including six deaths in custody; that figure described severe abuse generally, not 19 established cases of sexual violence.[11]

Accounts from northern Gaza in December 2023 described dozens of men being removed from homes, stripped, taken to military-run camps, interrogated, and beaten.[9] Survivors’ accounts from Beit Lahiya included handcuffing, stripping, and the burning of homes in front of detainees.[9] Further reported details included beatings during interrogation, including blows to the genitals, the release of some detainees, and the transfer of approximately 100 others to a military detention facility.[9]

In February 2024, UN special rapporteurs and independent experts raised reports of Palestinian women and girls being stripped and searched by male Israeli soldiers, alongside allegations that at least two women detainees had been raped.[12] Other women were reportedly threatened with rape or sexual violence.[12] The United States could not independently confirm these allegations, and State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called for a thorough and transparent investigation.[12] Israel’s UN mission rejected the claims as unfounded while expressing readiness to investigate concrete allegations supported by credible evidence.[12]

An unpublished UNRWA investigation described in March 2024 drew on interviews with more than 100 of the 1,002 detainees released to Gaza by mid-February.[10] Interviewees reported beatings, stripping, blindfolding, sexual abuse, and denial of access to lawyers and doctors, sometimes for more than a month.[10] The alleged purposes included extracting information or confessions, intimidation, humiliation, and punishment.[10] The reporting acknowledged that not every detail could be corroborated, although some accounts corresponded with other interviews with released detainees.[10]

Additional accounts developed during 2024 through interviews with released detainees and other witnesses.[13] A July account of an OHCHR report described sexual and gender-based violence allegations involving both women and men, drawing primarily on interviews and also on government, UN, media, and social-media information.[13] More than 9,400 security detainees were reportedly held by Israel at the end of June, but that detention figure did not measure the prevalence of sexual violence.[13]

In August 2024, a report based on interviews with 55 Palestinians from Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel alleged a systematic policy of abuse and torture, including repeated sexual violence of varying severity.[5] The IDF rejected claims of systematic abuse in facilities under its responsibility, while the Israel Prison Service said the claims were untrue to its knowledge and that complaints could be submitted for examination.[5]

The March 13, 2025 inquiry report broadened the focus to sexual, reproductive, and other gender-based violence since October 7, 2023.[14] Its allegations included forced public stripping and sexual assault as purported standard operating procedures, together with damage to reproductive healthcare.[2] Further international reporting continued into 2026, including a June account concerning alleged sexual violence against detained Palestinian children and young people.[15]

Forced nudity featured prominently in the detention findings, including repeated strip searches, interrogations while naked, and orders to perform movements while naked or partially stripped.[1] Some incidents were reportedly filmed.[1] Other accounts described stripped and blindfolded men being forced to crouch with their hands tied behind their backs, in front of soldiers or fellow detainees.[1] The inquiry characterized these practices as degrading and humiliating, and described stripping during transfers, detention, interrogation, and searches as widespread and systematic.[1]

Reported violence against men included beatings and kicking directed at the genitals, as well as pulling or squeezing of genitals, sometimes involving batons or metal detectors.[1] The same findings included information assessed as credible concerning rape and sexual assault, including alleged insertion of objects and use of an electrical probe causing anal burns.[1] Accounts reproduced in American human-rights reporting also included genital beatings, sexual harassment, threats of rape, and stripping of Palestinians held in Gaza.[9]

Sexual threats were reported against detainees themselves and against female members of their families.[1] One account described detainees being forced to make animal sounds and repeat sexual insults, with beatings for noncompliance.[1] A detainee held at Sde Teiman described being compelled with others to say, “I am a whore.”[1] Such accounts connected sexualized humiliation with coercion and punishment during detention.[1]

Accounts involving women included unwanted attempts to kiss them or touch their breasts, threats of rape, and repeated or prolonged strip searches.[1] Some women were reportedly required to remove all clothing, including veils, before male and female soldiers.[1] One reported case involved denial of access to a lawyer after a woman told him about threats of rape.[1] Other stakeholder accounts included invasive body searches, unwanted touching of intimate areas, forced unveiling of women wearing hijab, and prolonged forced nudity.[16]

Photographing women without consent in degrading circumstances formed another category of reported abuse.[1] One account concerned a woman arrested at a police station in northern Israel who was repeatedly strip-searched, beaten, verbally abused, dragged by her hair, and photographed in front of an Israeli flag.[1] The photographs were subsequently posted online.[1] Other reported photographs showed women in underwear before male soldiers.[1]

A submission based on interviews with 18 women detained after October 7 covered interviewees from Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.[8] All 18 reportedly described sexual abuse and threats of rape or sexual assault, including threats involving relatives.[8] The submission represented the interviewing organization’s account, rather than a separate finding independently adopted by the Human Rights Council.[8]

The broader detention accounts also included deprivation of food, water, toilets, and sleep, alongside allegations of cigarette burns, electric shocks, exposure to cold, and physical and mental abuse.[9] These were reported in conjunction with sexualized mistreatment, rather than as a separate quantified measure of sexual violence.[9] Accounts concerning West Bank security detainees similarly included sexual harassment and rape threats alongside stress positions, beatings, sleep deprivation, and threats against relatives.[9]

A 2026 UN account identified verified conflict-related sexual violence involving 14 men, seven women, nine boys, and one girl from Gaza and the West Bank.[4] Thirteen cases occurred in 2025, while 18 occurred in 2023–2024.[4] The 31 cases were presented as indicative of incidents and patterns, not as a comprehensive total, with lack of access to detention facilities and Gaza identified as a constraint.[4]

The conduct listed included rape, including with objects; gang rape; attempted rape; physical violence or targeted shooting directed at genitals; unwanted touching; and rape threats.[4] It also included forced nudity and strip or invasive body searches without apparent security justification.[4] Reported locations included military camps, prisons, a police station, checkpoints, and settings involving military operations, although detention and interrogation were the principal contexts.[4]

The reported forms of violence differed by sex and age: women were most often described as facing rape threats, forced nudity, unwanted touching, and humiliating strip searches, while men and boys were described as targets of rape, attempted rape, and genital violence.[4] Five male victims reportedly experienced severe rectal bleeding or swelling for days or weeks, and some did not receive medical care.[4] Some violations were reportedly photographed or filmed, while threats by security personnel were described as discouraging victims from reporting abuse.[4]

The institutional attributions included the IDF, Israel Prison Service and its Keter special unit, and the police counterterrorism unit Yamam.[4] The news account identified uncertainty over the attribution to Yamam and suggested that it might reflect a mistaken classification.[4] A separate June 2026 account described allegations involving detained Palestinian minors as part of a broader pattern, alongside Israel’s rejection of the findings and criticism of their methodology.[15]

Earlier material concerning children included a survey of 228 former child detainees from the West Bank.[9] Some respondents reported sexual violence or abuse, including being hit or touched on the genitals, and 69 percent reported strip searches.[9] That survey concerned the West Bank rather than Gaza and therefore did not supply a Gaza-specific rate of abuse.[9]

The Sde Teiman criminal case concerned a male Palestinian detainee transferred to the facility on July 5, 2024.[3] The February 2025 indictment alleged that five reservists assaulted him while he was shackled and blindfolded, beating him for about 15 minutes and stabbing him in the buttock with a sharp object near the anus.[3] The injuries specified included seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, a rectal tear, and other harm.[3]

The initial investigation included suspicion of aggravated sodomy, but the indictment ultimately charged causing severe injury and aggravated assault rather than that suspected sexual offense.[3] Medical records and security-camera documentation formed part of the evidentiary basis identified by the IDF.[3] An earlier international account described nine soldiers being questioned and several arrested in July 2024 over an allegation of rape causing life-threatening injury.[1] The later 2026 international account also discussed medical and video evidence of alleged insertion of an object, while noting that the indictment did not include rape or sexual-violence charges.[4]

A policy analysis of the investigation reproduced the suspected offenses’ legal wording as “sodomy in coercive circumstances, causing injury combined with aggravated intent, collective abuse in aggravating circumstances, inappropriate behavior.”[17] Some soldiers were also suspected of assaulting and obstructing a public servant.[17] The investigation was handled by the IDF’s Criminal Investigative Unit for Operational Affairs, with possible court-martial proceedings discussed at that stage.[17]

In March 2026, the Military Advocate General cancelled the indictment against the five reservists.[4][6] The reasons identified included evidentiary complexity, the detainee’s release to Gaza without testifying, and procedural problems involving investigative materials and leaked security-camera footage.[6] The IDF’s summary described the initial testimony, medical records, and footage as presenting a grave and troubling picture, while also identifying inconclusive footage and differences in the detainee’s accounts.[6] The cancellation was reported as resting on fair-trial and evidentiary grounds, not as a determination of the defendants’ innocence.[6]

The case also prompted discussion of military responsibility beyond the alleged conduct of individual soldiers.[17] The policy analysis raised questions about commanders’ presence, possible failures to intervene, and organizational conditions that might have enabled abuse, without establishing command responsibility.[17] It also assessed the investigators’ work as professional and supported addressing suspected criminal conduct through the military justice system.[17]

The March 2025 allegations included the December 2023 shelling of Gaza’s largest fertility clinic and the reported destruction of thousands of embryos and sperm samples.[7] Other allegations concerned attacks on maternity hospitals, restrictions on medical supplies, and restrictions on medical evacuation.[2][7] These were linked in the inquiry’s analysis to miscarriages, maternal deaths, and damage to Palestinians’ reproductive capacity.[2][7]

The legal characterization extended beyond individual assaults: the alleged destruction of reproductive-health infrastructure was connected to an asserted intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part.[18] Measures allegedly intended to prevent births were characterized as potentially genocidal, while other alleged conduct was characterized as potentially constituting war crimes or crimes against humanity.[7] The March 2025 findings also associated the alleged reproductive harm and maternity deaths with extermination.[2]

A related dimension concerned gendered exposure to hardship and risk rather than identified assaults.[19] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs reproduced an inquiry passage describing displacement, deaths and injuries among relatives, and economic hardship as having particularly serious effects on women, including increased risks of sexual and gender-based violence.[19] That passage supplied neither a count of resulting incidents nor individual case details.[19]

Public statements also extended the reported settings beyond detention facilities.[20] The Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs reproduced Sima Bahous’s March 11, 2024 reference to “harrowing testimonies” involving Palestinian women in detention, house raids, and checkpoints.[20] Its reproduced February 19 statement additionally described reports of women being stripped and searched by male officers and five detainees allegedly ordered to perform degrading motions after being stripped.[20] The page recorded that Israel was asked to respond and did so on April 11, 2024.[20]

The findings in A/79/232 classified rape of male detainees as a war crime and crime against humanity.[1] Other sexualized acts were classified as torture, inhuman treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, or other inhumane acts.[1] These classifications were findings of an investigative commission rather than a court judgment.[1] The Sde Teiman proceedings, by contrast, involved a military criminal investigation and an indictment whose actual charges concerned severe injury and aggravated assault.[3]

In December 2025, the UN Committee against Torture expressed deep concern about numerous allegations involving male and female Palestinian detainees.[21] The conduct listed included rape or attempted rape, sexualized torture, genital and anal violence, degrading strip searches, forced nudity and unveiling, sexual harassment, and rape threats.[21] Its recommendations called for prevention, investigation, prosecution, punishment, and reparation.[21] It also recorded that, according to information available to it, no Israeli security officials had been charged for such conduct at that time.[21]

The investigative methods described for A/79/232 included multiple sources, thousands of open-source items, remote and in-person victim and witness interviews, and forensic examination of digital material through authentication and geolocation.[1] Nine requests for information and access were sent to Israel without a response.[1] The later 2026 account similarly identified continued denial of access to detention sites and Gaza as limiting documentation.[4]

The evidentiary categories remained important within the reporting itself.[1][4] The two female-detainee rape allegations received from Palestinian Authority sources were still undergoing verification in A/79/232, separately from information concerning male detainees assessed as credible.[1] Stakeholder accounts reproduced in the Special Representative’s reporting did not establish prevalence, while the 2026 verified-case figures were expressly not comprehensive.[4][16]

Israel rejected the March 2025 accusations as unfounded; its UN mission described their basis as “second-hand, single, uncorroborated sources,” and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu likewise rejected them.[22] The IDF stated that its policies unequivocally prohibited the alleged misconduct and that its review processes met international standards.[2]

Methodological objections concerned corroboration, missing Israeli information, and the treatment of reproductive-health infrastructure.[18] The critical analysis described an exception allowing verification of sexual violence from a single credible primary source, rather than the usual corroboration by two other independent reliable sources.[18] It also challenged the reproductive-violence conclusions for failing to account for field hospitals and temporary clinics.[18] Separate criticism of the October 2024 inquiry concerned an alleged failure to account for Israeli investigations into prisoner mistreatment.[23]

These disputes do not make all accounts equivalent: the material includes unverified allegations, verified incidents as defined by reporting bodies, investigative legal conclusions, and a criminal case cancelled without a finding of innocence.[1][4][6] Neither the international findings nor the cancellation of the Sde Teiman indictment supplied a final judicial determination of the broader allegations.[1][6]