By David Lethbridge
Note: The following article contains language and subject matter relating to sexual violence. Some readers may find this triggering.
“You sons of bitches, we came here to fuck you, you and your mothers, you bitches. The dirty p****ies of your prostitutes, you ugly Arab, you ugly, you sons of bitches, we will burn you alive you dogs.”
These words were written in Hebrew by Israeli soldiers on the wall of a women’s shelter in Gaza. The centre was later destroyed by tank fire.
“I was lying on the floor, completely naked. The soldiers demanded that I kiss the Israeli flag, but I refused so they beat me severely and kicked me on the genitals. I vomited as a result. I was in pain and my testicles swollen and bruised from the beating. I lost consciousness for a short time and woke up again to realize they were still beating me.”
These words are from the testimony of a Palestinian man detained in the Negev prison. His attackers were members of the Keter Unit of the Israeli Prison Service.
In May 2021, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) established the “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,” with the purpose of investigating possible war crimes and other abuses committed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories. The Commission has been gathering testimony like that referenced above, and submitted a 49-page report to the UNHRC’s recent fifty-eighth session on March 13.
The report, titled “More Than A Human Can Bear: Israel’s Systematic Use of Sexual, Reproductive and Other Forms of Gender-Based Violence Since 7 October 2023,” examines in vivid detail Israel’s systematic use of sexual violence in Palestine.
Yet, the report’s contents – and indeed its very existence – have gone virtually unnoticed.
It is not possible here to either detail or summarize all the report’s findings. But it is important to illustrate the depths to which Israeli soldiers and prison guards have descended in their use of sexual violence and sexual torture of Palestinian men, women and children.
Female prisoners have been threatened with and subjected to sexual assault and rape. Palestinian women have been kicked in the genitals, or had their breasts fondled.
In one instance an Israeli soldier threatened to rape a detained woman, kill her, and then burn her children. He asked her, “How do you want us to rape you? One by one or all together?”
The report maintains that hundreds of Palestinian men and boys have been photographed or filmed while subjected to “acts of a sexual nature” including forced public nudity. In one case, a female Israeli soldier forced two boys to strip to their underwear and to dance in front of other detainees, while she laughed at them and filmed their humiliation. In other instances, female soldiers had forced several men to make sounds like sheep and curse the prophet Mohammed, while repeating “I am a whore.”
One video, which was posted on social media by Israeli soldiers operating in Hebron in the Occupied West Bank, depicts six blindfolded men undressed and lying on the ground. Two of the men are completely naked with their genitals exposed. One of them is either unconscious or dead, while the other is screaming in pain. A soldier is seen stepping on the face of a man whose hands and feet are tied.
There are several documented cases of rape and sexual assault of Palestinian men detained in prisons. Electrical probes, sticks, broomsticks and vegetables have been inserted into prisoners’ rectums, and in one case a man a metal instrument repeatedly inserted into his penis, causing severe agony and damage.
“The woman is an enemy. The baby is an enemy”
Israeli officials have called for the annihilation of Gaza, civilians and militants alike. Israeli pundit and former military intelligence leader Eliyahu Yosian stated on television that “The woman is an enemy, the baby is an enemy, and the pregnant woman is an enemy.”
And indeed, women and children have been disproportionately killed. IDF snipers have attacked women and girls in the streets, including a pregnant woman who was shot and killed while approaching a hospital. Frequently, women with small children – who obviously posed no threat – have been targeted and shot.
The Independent International Commission’s report estimates that well over half a million women and girls of reproductive age in Gaza have been impacted by Israeli direct attacks on healthcare facilities offering sexual and reproductive health services.
Hospitals that previously provided such care can increasingly no longer do so. The shelling of the maternity wards at al-Shifa and al-Nasser Hospitals rendered these wards non-functional. Al-Emirati Maternity Hospital, al-Awda Hospital and al-Mahdi Maternity Clinic, which were the primary maternal health facilities in Gaza, can no longer provide desperately needed services. Emergency obstetric and newborn care is rapidly disappearing.
In one case, a fertility clinic which had previously served 2000-3000 patients per month was shelled by Israeli tank fire, destroying embryos, unfertilized eggs and sperm samples. Why this clinic was eliminated has never been adequately explained.
Neonatal, prenatal and post-partum care is increasingly difficult to find, resulting in increased rates of maternal morbidity, stillbirths and miscarriages. Simple instruments such as forceps are no longer available, as are medicines for infection or pain.
As a result of Israel’s war, malnutrition, dehydration and starvation are increasing especially among infants, young children and pregnant women. On top of the anxiety and stress resulting from grief over the loss of multiple family members and multiple displacements, this has a devastating impact on women with infants. Lactation becomes difficult, so many mothers can no longer produce breastmilk, and baby formula is almost impossible to obtain. The lack of clean water for bathing leads to increased infections and diseases, and there are no antibiotics and other medications available to treat these problems. The long-term psychological effects of these horrendous situations are as yet unknown.
Given the obvious fact that Israeli forces are deliberately destroying the sexual and reproductive healthcare infrastructure of Palestine, it is difficult not to conclude that the partial, or even total, elimination of the Palestinian population is the intended consequence.
The world must act on report
Genocide is no abstraction. While it is in itself a unity, it manifests itself through a multitude of forms. These include military strikes, aerial bombardment, burning, physical slaughter, forced starvation, targeted killing of journalists, obliteration of culture, destruction of educational and hospital facilities, and the abduction and imprisonment and torture of doctors and medical personnel. And, as the Independent International Commission’s report illustrates, it includes sexual violence aimed both at individuals and at the Palestinian community as a whole.
The report must not be covered up or dismissed. The world must know about the viciousness of Israeli sexual violence in Palestine.
And it must act on that knowledge.
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