A United Nations team has found “clear and convincing” information that hostages in Gaza were sexually abused, Pramila Patten, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict told reporters on Monday. There are “reasonable grounds” to believe the sexual violence is ongoing, she added.
According to Patten, the team also found “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape occurred” during Hamas’ October 7 terror attack in Israel, in what is the most definitive finding by the global organization on sexual assault allegations in the aftermath of the attack.
The UN team, which was led by Patten, visited Israel between January 29 to February 14 for a mission “aimed at gathering, analyzing, and verifying information on conflict-related sexual violence” during October 7 and its aftermath, according to a 24-page report.
Patten stressed on Monday that the mission “was neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature,” adding that the team had 33 meetings with Israeli institutions while in Israel, interviewed 34 people, including survivors and witnesses to the October 7 attack, and released hostages, as well as reviewed 50 hours of footage of the attacks.
The mission was not able to meet with any victims of sexual violence on October 7 “despite our efforts,” Patten said. “On the very first day, I made a call for survivors to come forward. But we received information that a handful of them were receiving very specialized trauma treatment and were not prepared to come forward,” she said.
Hamas has previously denied that its militants committed rape during the October 7 attack.
“We strongly reject and denounce the coordination of some Western media outlets with the Zionist misleading campaigns that promote unfounded lies and allegations aimed at demonizing the Palestinian resistance, the latest of which is the allegation that resistance members committed ‘sexual violence’ during the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th,” Hamas’ political office said in a statement on Telegram in December.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
