Pramila Patten, a senior UN official, came to Israel a month ago with a mandate to gather information on claims that Hamas terrorists had committed rape and other acts of sexual violence against Israeli women and men on October 7th. Her trip came after months of conspicuous silence on the matter from UN Women, and appalling statements from other UN officials that amounted to gaslighting and atrocity denial.
JIJ’s team of human rights lawyers and researchers met with Patten’s team on February 8th. We presented detailed testimony and gruesome photographs taken by first responders who had handled the bodies of the October 7th victims. Watch their public testimony HERE.
JIJ has UN consultative status, which gives us access to senior U.N. officials at critical moments like this. We chose to bring forth the evidence we had collected, for the sake of the murdered victims and living survivors who are still too traumatized for an invasive interrogation.
On Monday, Ms. Patten published her report, finding:
Read the full report HERE.
This is a rare and valuable admission from a senior UN official, that Hamas intentionally used sexual violence as a weapon of war. This rare moment of truth-telling wouldn’t have come without your support.
JIJ does the painstaking work of collecting, interpreting, and presenting the evidence of human rights abuses in Israel and the Middle East. Our goal is to combat atrocity denial, fight for justice for the victims, validate the memories of the living survivors, and hold the perpetrators accountable.
We do this work within the UN, which has utterly failed so far to contend with reality:
With your support, we’ll continue standing up for Israel inside the UN system, fighting to release the captives, defund Hamas, and secure justice for all of Hamas’ victims.