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HRC - Press Conference: Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory 13 March 2025
Rights probe alleges Israeli forces’ sexual violence against Palestinians used as a method of war
Senior human rights investigators reporting to the Human Rights Council alleged on Thursday that sexual and gender-based violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinian men, women and children have been increasingly used “as a method of war” following the 7 October 2023 attacks that sparked the Gaza war.
“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,” maintained Chris Sidoti from the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
Speaking in Geneva, the human rights lawyer said that “the frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated across the OPT leads the Commission to conclude that sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a method of war by Israel to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people”.
Established by the Council in May 2021, the Commission has a mandate to investigate and report on alleged violations of international law in the OPT, including East Jerusalem - and in Israel. Previous reports have covered in detail the terror attacks on Israeli villages and towns on 7 and 8 October by Hamas-led Palestinian armed fighters that killed around 1,250 people and left more than 250 taken as hostages back to Gaza.
Publication of the Commission’s report followed two days of public hearings held in Geneva from 11 to 12 March, featuring victims and witnesses of sexual and reproductive violence and medical personnel who assisted them, as well as civil society representatives, academics, lawyers and medical experts.
Mr. Sidoti said that the Commission had made several requests to the Israeli authorities for information on specific, serious cases of sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinian prisoners taken from Gaza. But no information has been provided about prosecutions of members of the Israeli security forces or Israeli settlers for sexual and violence committed since October 2023, he told journalists.
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” were “standard operating procedure” of the Israeli Security Forces 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 maintained.”
“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.”
The Commission also asserted that Israeli forces had systematically destroyed sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities across Gaza, including Gaza's largest fertility clinic, Al Basma centre, in December 2023.
Tank shelling destroyed about 4,000 embryos at the clinic that reportedly assisted 2,000-3,000 patients a month.
“There is a question about whether those who were firing the tank shell - because our conclusion is that it was destroyed by a tank shell - knew at that time that it was a fertility clinic,” Mr. Sidoti said. “But certainly their commanders knew and the commanders would have known that there were tanks operating within that vicinity and firing on buildings and fired on a healthcare facility that was clearly marked.”
The Commission’s report finds that the destruction amounts “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”.
Head of the Commission, Navi Pillay, said in a statement that the targeting of reproductive healthcare facilities including “direct attacks” on maternity wards and the IVF clinic, “combined with the use of starvation as a method of war, has impacted all aspects of reproduction…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.”
Israel ‘categorically rejects’ allegations
In a press release published on Wednesday, the Israeli mission in Geneva said their Government “categorically rejects the unfounded allegations” made in the commission’s report.
Israel accused the COI of instrumentalising sexual violence “to advance its predetermined and biased political agenda, setting back the important work of international institutions to combat the perpetration of these abhorrent acts as a weapon of war.”
STORY: Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory
TRT: 03’37”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 13 March 2025 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Speaker: Chris Sidoti, Member of the Commission
SHOTLIST
- Exterior medium shot: Palais des Nations, Flag Alley.
- Wide shot of the Press room, podium speakers, journalists at UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “Our report finds that 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. It also concludes that Israel has carried out genocidal acts through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities.”
- Medium shot of podium speakers, TV screen showing Commissioner.
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated across the Occupied Palestinian Territory leads the Commission to conclude that sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a method of war by Israel to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people.”
- Wide, photographer, journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “The Commission documented a pattern of sexual violence, including cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and other inhumane acts that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
- Medium, Press room, TV screens showing Commissioner.
- SOUNDBITE (English) - Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “We have not made any finding of genocide; we have identified a number of acts that constitute the categories of genocidal act under the law, we have not yet examined the question of genocidal purpose.”
- Wide, Press room, photographer and journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “Several requests for information and access were sent to the Government of Israel, including requests for information on specific cases of sexual and gender-based violence carried out by members of the Israeli security forces. The Commission has not received any information about prosecutions of members of the Israeli security forces or Israeli settlers for sexual and violence committed since October 2023.”
- Medium-wide, journalists, photographer.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “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.”
- Medium, photographer, TV screen showing Commissioner.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “There is a question about whether those who were firing the tank shell - because our conclusion is that it was destroyed by a tank shell - knew at that time that it was a fertility clinic, but certainly their commanders knew and the commanders would have known that there were tanks operating within that vicinity and firing on buildings and fired on a healthcare facility that was clearly marked.”
- Medium-wide, photographer, journalists, TV journalists.
- SOUNDBITE (English) – Chris Sidoti, Commissioner: “Victims of human rights violations are entitled to have their experience recorded and known, acknowledged and at the very least, we're doing that. But we don't have the capacity, we're not a court, we want the courts to act, we want states to act, we want the United Nations to act.”
- Medium-wide, TV journalists, control booths.
- Medium-wide, journalists.
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
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Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
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Preparing for moving baselines
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Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
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