Israel rejects UN report alleging ‘genocidal’ attacks on Gaza reproductive centers

A UN report accuses Israel of carrying out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s healthcare facilities during the conflict in Gaza, and using sexual violence as a war strategy.

The report is rejected by Israel as unfounded, biased and lacking credibility.

In its report, the the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel says Israel had “intentionally attacked and destroyed” the Palestinian territory’s main fertility center, and had simultaneously imposed a siege and blocked aid including medication for ensuring safe pregnancies, deliveries and neonatal care.

“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” the report reads.

Those actions, in addition to a surge in maternity deaths due to restricted access to medical supplies, amounted to the crime against humanity of extermination, the commission says.

The report also alleges Israel’s security forces used forced public stripping and sexual assault as part of their standard operating procedures to punish Palestinians following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel accuses the commission of advancing a “predetermined and biased political agenda… in a shameless attempt to incriminate the Israel Defense Forces.”

“The IDF has concrete directives… and policies which unequivocally prohibit such misconduct,” Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva responds, adding that its review processes are in line with international standards.

In March of 2024, the UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict said there were reasonable grounds to conclude that victims in Israel had been raped and subjected to other forms of sexual violence by Palestinians during the October 7 attack. At least one freed hostage has also reported being raped by her captor and others have recounted sexual harassment and assaults in captivity.