Israeli civilians watched Palestinian detainees raped and grouped in detention centres [Getty]
Warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence, abuse, and torture that some readers may find distressing.
A new report by the UN Commission of Inquiry has revealed that Israeli civilians were invited to military detention centres, where they witnessed, photographed and participated in the sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees.
The publication of the findings follows multiple public hearings held from 11 to 12 March, where senior human rights investigators reporting to the UN Human Rights Council shared testimonies of Palestinian detainees, including women and children, who were subjected to horrific treatment in Israeli detention centres.
In newly resurfaced footage, Kifaya Khraim from the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling detailed the abuse faced by Palestinian women, both in Gaza and the West Bank.
During the hearing in Geneva, she told the commission: “A woman was taken to Sde Teiman and she was nude-searched over and over again and filmed. And then she was raped twice by Israeli male soldiers, two of them at a time while videotaping her.”
Other testimonies shared during the hearing described similar abuse, with women recounting strip searches, genital beatings, and humiliation.
Detainees were often held in large, mixed-gender groups, forced to strip naked, and kept in squalid conditions where they endured sexual assault and public humiliation.
Khraim added: “Many women were forcibly disappeared and taken to the Zikim Detention Centre and then the Negev Detention Centre, all together in one large hall, forced to strip completely naked and just sit in this hall, the women amongst each other and the men amongst each other.”
According to witnesses, Israeli civilians were allowed to visit these centres, where they mocked the detainees, took photos, and watched them “as if they were in a zoo”.
In a statement accompanying the release of the Commission’s report, it asserted that “forced public stripping and nudity, sexual harassment including threats of rape, as well as sexual assault” was “standard operating procedure” of the Israeli forces toward Palestinians.
“We heard evidence – you would have heard it if you were looking at our hearings during the last two days – where men and boys were forced to strip wholly or almost wholly, that is down to underpants and then were kept in that condition, often having to sit on stones on the ground in the cold in winter for up to three days,” said one of the investigators.
In addition to the rampant sexual violence, Israeli forces systematically destroyed vital healthcare infrastructure in Gaza, including Al Basma Fertility Clinic, which was targeted by tank shelling in December 2023, destroying thousands of embryos.
Tank shelling destroyed about 4,000 embryos at the clinic that reportedly assisted 2,000-3,000 patients a month.
The report suggests that these attacks on reproductive health facilities amount to genocidal acts, as they were deliberately intended to harm Palestinians’ ability to reproduce and destroy their social fabric.
In response to the report, Israel, which faces accusations of genocide and war crimes in Gaza, rejected the findings and accused the Commission of publishing “unfounded allegations”, despite the large testimonies and witnesses.
