Gaza Genocide30 June, 20263 min read
Report Documents Israel’s Sexual Violence, Including Rape, Against Gaza Detainees
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Testimonies describe rape and sexual violence against Gaza detainees in Israeli prisons. Documentary exposes methodical sexual violence by Israeli forces against Palestinian prisoners.
The Intercept was read line by line by the Watchdog: 2.3. See the score →
Prisons, rape, and testimony
A new report titled 'Another Genocide Behind the Walls' documents widespread sexual violence, including rape, directed against detainees from the Gaza Strip, describing it as a tool of destruction intended to break the individual and collective will and to inflict grave physical and psychological harm. The report cites direct sexual assaults, assaults with objects, and acts of torture targeting the genital area, including organized practices such as filming and the presence of multiple security personnel during the assaults. Euro-Med Monitor researcher Khaled Ahmad said it was 'practically impossible' to access cases of sexual violence and to collect testimonies, while he added that the number of people subjected to sexual violence is higher than expected.
In a testimony documented by Euro-Med Monitor, Wajdi, 43, recounted being raped several times by soldiers and a dog during interrogations, including being tied naked to a metal bed while soldiers filmed him and laughed at him. The report also describes detention policies that cause serious and lasting physical and psychological harm, including injuries resulting in permanent disability and, in some cases, altering reproductive function.
Systemic pattern and UN blacklist
The Intercept says a new Palestinian Feminist Collective report argues that sexual violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians in detention is both systematic and decades-old, describing a 'wider system of sexualized and gendered violence spanning detention, warfare, surveillance, reproductive destruction, family separation, domicide, and the desecration of Palestinian bodies' over decades. The Intercept reports that the United Nations added Israel in May to a blacklist of countries found to be committing sexual violence in war zones, citing 31 cases of sexual violence perpetrated in the last two years by Israeli forces against Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Intercept also includes testimony from a 42-year-old woman arrested in Gaza in November 2024, who said, "I felt a penis penetrating my anus and a man raping me," and described being beaten while blindfolded.
In another account, a 41-year-old Palestinian father arrested at Kamal Adwan Hospital in December 2023 reported, "One of the soldiers raped me by violently inserting a wooden stick into my anus." The Intercept frames the report as a response to efforts to discredit Palestinian claims, while noting that the Israeli government, military, and prison system did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Detention numbers and consequences
Jarida al-Ghad reports that the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres included the Israeli occupying forces in a list of parties for which there is credible information about suspected involvement in patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence related to armed conflict. It says the UN verified cases of conflict-related sexual violence affecting 14 men, 7 women, 9 boys, and one girl from Gaza and the West Bank, and that 13 of these cases occurred in 2025 while 18 others date to 2023 and 2024. The same article states that, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Israel, under the Gaza ceasefire agreement, released 1,968 Palestinians who were detained, while more than 9,000 Palestinians remain in prisons and detention centers, including more than 4,000 without charges or trials or under administrative detention.
It also says the report noted that reporting these violations has faced difficulties, including direct threats attributed to the security agencies of the Israeli authorities aimed at forcing detainees not to report the abuses they suffered. The article further reports that all charges were dropped in March 2026 for five reserve soldiers from Unit 100 of the Israeli Army indicted on 19 February 2025 in connection with a severe physical assault at the Sde Teiman camp in July 2024.