NEW YORK: UN experts on Thursday expressed grave concern that sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians has become a systematic tool of control, warning it is contributing to displacement and may amount to serious violations of international law.
The experts said such violence is being used within the broader context of Israeli occupation, alleging it plays a role in oppression, intimidation, and the forcible transfer of Palestinian communities.
A group of more than a dozen independent UN human rights experts, including Francesca Albanese, Reem Alsalem, Michael Fakhri, and Balakrishnan Rajagopal, said the alleged abuses are “intersecting, structural and systematic.”
“Israeli sexual violence has become embedded in Palestinians’ daily lives under occupation,” the experts said in a statement. “
“It operates as a tool of control, subjugation and dispossession.”
Drawing on multiple independent investigations, the experts said sexual violence has been reported in a wide range of contexts, including detention facilities, checkpoints, house raids, and encounters with both Israeli forces and settlers.
They also voiced alarm at what they described as inaction by the international community.
“Political convenience, strategic, military and economic interests are placed above Palestinian lives,” the statement said, warning that such indifference undermines international law and fuels further cycles of violence.
The experts referred to their February 2024 assessment and a March 2025 report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory which found sexual violence against Palestinians, including women, men, girls and boys, is used “to terrorize them and perpetuate a system of oppression.”
According to the experts, these violations are escalating, and serve both as a driver and a consequence of forced displacement.
Violations contribute to a coercive environment that compels individuals and communities to flee, while exposing them to further risks of abuse, the experts said.
The experts also highlighted the destruction of sexual and reproductive health facilities in Gaza, which the commission said has led to deaths and illnesses among women and girls due to pregnancy and childbirth-related complications. It warned of “irreversible long-term effects” on mental health, as well as reproductive and fertility prospects.
“Sexualized violence is deployed as a method of domination — to instill fear, punish, and fracture communities,” the experts said, adding that stigma and shame are used to isolate survivors and erode social cohesion.
“By making everyday life unsafe and unpredictable, it pressures Palestinians to leave their homes and land.”
The experts said that both children and adults in the West Bank are subjected to violations targeting their bodily integrity, including sexual harassment, body cavity searches, and threats of sexual assault, which often take place near their homes.
They also cited cases of sexualized torture and ill-treatment, including forced nudity, genital violence, and threats directed at individuals and their family members.
The experts pointed to what they described as a persistent climate of impunity involving both state actors and settlers. Despite repeated documentation of alleged abuses, investigations are rare and accountability remains absent, they said.
“This dual failure reinforces a system in which violence against Palestinians is tolerated, if not enabled,” the experts said, adding that such acts may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to patterns of forcible transfer.
The experts called on Israel to immediately end all forms of sexual and gender-based violence and to hold perpetrators accountable. They also urged the international community to take concrete measures to prevent and respond to such violations, in line with obligations under international law, including those outlined in a July 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice.
“Sexual violence cannot be treated as incidental harm,” the experts said. “It is a central component of the system of settler colonial oppression imposed on Palestinians.”
