UN accuses Israel of committing sexual violence against Palestinians

The UN has added Israel’s security forces to a list of entities “credibly suspected” of committing sexual violence in conflict, sparking a furious backlash from Israeli officials who said they would cut ties with the UN secretary-general, António Guterres.

The blacklisting came in a report by Guterres to the UN Security Council, which said the UN had verified multiple cases of conflict-related sexual violence, “including as a form of torture” against 31 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza between 2023 and 2025.

The alleged violations included “rape, including with objects, gang rape, attempted rape, physical violence to the genitals, instances of targeted shooting of the genitals, touching of breasts and genitals, strip and cavity searches conducted without apparent security justification, forced nudity and threats of rape”, the report published on Friday said.

The report added the “perpetrators” included the Israel Defense Forces, Israel Prison Service, including the Keter special forces, and the Police Counter-Terrorism Unit.

Israeli officials reacted with outrage to the report’s contents and the blacklisting, with the foreign ministry branding it “shameful and absurd”.

“[The] decision is yet another example of the UN’s longstanding, institutionalised hostility towards Israel,” the ministry said, adding that Israel had “comprehensively, thoroughly and unequivocally refuted these allegations”.

“Today’s decision must be understood in its true context: an attempt to create a fake symmetry between Israel and the real sexual atrocities committed by Hamas. This is its sole motivation,” the ministry said.

It added it would sever ties with the Guterres’s office until a new secretary-general was appointed. His term is due to expire at the end of the year and the process to appoint a successor has begun.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric on Thursday said Guterres was still prepared to work with Israel. “From the secretary-general’s point of view, his door remains open to Israeli representatives,” he said.

According to Guterres’s report, Israeli violations against Palestinians were committed “primarily during detention and interrogation” and took place at several locations, including military camps, such as the notorious Sde Teiman, prisons, checkpoints and an Israeli police station.

Sexual violence against female detainees included threats of rape, forced nudity, unwanted touching and humiliating or degrading strip-searches without justification.

Violence against men and boys included rape, attempted rape and violence to the genitals. As a result of the abuse, “five male victims suffer[ed] severe rectal bleeding or swelling for multiple days or weeks and, in some cases, without receiving medical treatment”, the report said.

Among the victims were journalists and human rights activists.

The report also said UN entities had “consistently documented a systematic lack of accountability for violations against Palestinians, perpetuating a climate of impunity”.

Hamas, which triggered the war in Gaza with its October 7 2023 attack on Israel, was added to the UN blacklist last year over alleged sexual violence committed by its members during the Palestinian militant group’s assault on Israel, as well as against the hostages it captured that day.

Guterres’s report said six hostages released last year had publicly alleged they endured sexual abuse in captivity, but it had not been able to verify the claims “given the continued denial of access by the government of Israel to competent United Nations bodies to carry out investigations”.