Israeli ambassador calls on UN to act on report documenting Hamas’ sexual violence on Oct 7

Daniel Meron, the Israeli Ambassador to the UN in Geneva, urged the United Nations to take action on a new independent report documenting Hamas’ systematic use of sexual violence as a weapon during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion and massacre of Israeli civilians.

“It took far too long for the UN to even acknowledge that such violence took place,” Meron told media representatives at the UN in Geneva. 

“Conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence was used against Israelis … in a brutal and calculated way, and yet the United Nations has not acted,” the Israeli envoy stated. 

Titled “A Quest for Justice,” the independent 84-page report produced by the Dinah Project under the auspices of the Ruth and Emanuel Rackman Center at Bar-Ilan University, reveals in detail Hamas’ systematic weaponization of sexual violence against primarily Israeli women during and after the Oct. 7 atrocities. 

“Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war,” the report concluded, emphasizing that Hamas terrorists employed such violence as part of a genocidal scheme aimed at terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society.

As the title of the report implies, it also seeks to outline a path towards justice for the Oct. 7 victims. 

Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, the head of the Dinah project, stated at a briefing with UN correspondents that sexual violence in a conflict is “the perfect crime” because many of the victims were “silenced” after being brutally murdered. 

Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, a law professor at Bar-Ilan University, revealed that the atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists included “rapes and gang rapes and mutilations of sexual organs and executions after the assault.” 

She emphasized that photographs and testimonies revealed a “pattern where bodies, mostly of women, were found naked or half naked in recurring positions, some cuffed to trees or poles with shots into their genitalia.” 

Halperin-Kaddari blasted the international community for its “silence” and lamented “a total failure of the international human rights system.”

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists initially documented their crimes against Israeli women, children, and the elderly in real time using body cameras. Yet it wasn’t long before both Hamas and many international anti-Israel activists began denying the atrocities – a troubling phenomenon that has been compared to Holocaust denial.

Multiple captured Hamas terrorists have confessed that they raped and murdered Israeli women during the Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel. 

In December 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned human rights organizations for ignoring the Hamas crimes against Israeli women. 

“I didn’t hear the human rights organizations, or the women’s organizations, or the women’s organizations of the UN… and I ask them: Where are you? Were you quiet because we were talking about Jewish women? I want to say this in a language that everybody understands,” Netanyahu stated.

The prime minister specifically addressed international women’s rights organizations. “I want to say to the women’s rights organizations, to the human rights organizations. You have heard of the rape of the Israeli women, horrible atrocities, and sexual mutilations. Where the hell are you?"

“I expect all civilized leaders, governments, nations to speak up against this atrocity,” he said.