March 13 (UPI) -- The U.N. human rights watchdog Thursday accused Israel of the increasing use of sexual violence against Palestinians and genocidal acts "through the systematic destruction of sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities," in Gaza and the West Bank in the 17 months since it was attacked on Oct. 7, 2023.
The violations detailed in the 49-page-report presented to Human Rights Council hearings in Geneva perpetrated against Palestinian women, men, girls and boys across the Occupied Palestinian Territory "constitute a major element in the ill-treatment of Palestinians and are part of the unlawful occupation and persecution of Palestinians as a group," the U.N. Human Rights Commission said in a news release.
Israel, which the commission said had refused to cooperate in the investigation, rejected the report calling it a "sick document that only an anti-Semitic organization such as the U.N. could produce" and the "worst blood libel" in history.
Investigators said the abuse by Israel Defense Forces and settlers, including rape and violence to the genitals, and threats of rape to humiliate and intimidate, was ordered or incited by Israel's civil and military leaders.
The commission found sexual violence was used as "a means of punishment and intimidation" during arrests and throughout suspects' detention, including during interrogations and searches, saying they appeared to have been motivated by "extreme hatred towards Palestinians and a "desire to dehumanize and punish them."
Women were routinely threatened with rape and cases were documented of women forced to strip or remove their veil in public, or in front of soldiers, and "invasive and humiliating searches, threats and verbal and physical abuse."
The commission said it considered this as sexual violence within the context of religious and cultural dress codes, particularly for Muslim women and girls around the removal of the veil.
Men and boys were held naked in freezing cold Israeli detention facilities for days with many saying they had been raped, according to the report.
It reported that forced nudity in front of both soldiers and other detainees, was frequently used against men and boys including through repeated strip searches and interrogations where they had to perform naked, sometimes while being filmed.
Subjecting detained to sexual slurs as they were transported naked, cramming naked detainees into overcrowded cells and forcing stripped and blindfolded detainees to crouch on the ground with their hands tied behind their back, were also detailed.
The commission said it had verified four cases of Israel Security Forces staff kicking, yanking or squeezing the genitals of male detainees. Others reported being forcibly penetrated with fingers, sticks, broomsticks, vegetables and metal rods, inserted into their anus or penis.
The report said the accounts it had gathered were too widespread and too similar for only a few bad apples to have been involved and that it had concluded the sexual violence being meted out was systemic.
"The evidence collected by the Commission reveals a deplorable increase in sexual and gender-based violence," said commission chair Navi Pillay.
"There is no escape from the conclusion that Israel has employed sexual and gender-based violence against Palestinians to terrorize them and perpetuate a system of oppression that undermines their right to self-determination," she said.
The report also accused Israel of the systematic targeting of Gaza's sexual and reproductive facilities and preventing medicines and equipment needed to keep women safe during pregnancy and delivery and provide postpartum and neonatal care in violation of their rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Deaths from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth caused by the resulting conditions in Gaza amounted, the commission said, to the crime against humanity of "extermination."
It found Israel had deliberately created "conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians" and imposed measures "intended to prevent births," both acts of genocide as defined in the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute.
"The targeting of reproductive healthcare facilities, including through direct attacks on maternity wards and Gaza's main in-vitro fertility clinic, combined with the use of starvation as a method of war, has impacted all aspects of reproduction," said Pillay.
"These violations have not only caused severe immediate physical and mental harm and suffering to women and girls, but irreversible long-term effects on the mental health and reproductive and fertility prospects of Palestinians as a group."