Al-Haq welcomes the latest report of the United Nations (UN) Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (CoI), titled “More than a human can bear”: Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023, as an important, highly probative source that adds to the mounting body of evidence on crimes and genocidal acts committed by Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime.
Drawing from existing information published by other UN agencies and bodies, further investigations carried out in 2024, and information provided by civil society and women’s rights organisations, the CoI’s report sheds a much-needed spotlight on the devastating toll Israel’s genocide in Gaza has had on women and girls, and the often under-reported prevalence of sexual violence against Palestinian men and women committed by Israeli forces and illegally transferred in settlers across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).
Nearly 20 percent of all persons killed in Gaza since 7 October 2023 are women, with October 2023 being the most lethal month for Palestinian women in Gaza ever recorded. The upward trend in female fatalities we are currently witnessing was already identified by the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict, which emphasized that attacks on residential buildings rendered women particularly vulnerable to death and injury. Almost a decade later, in October 2023, more than nine out of ten women and children killed by Israel were killed in residential buildings and 95 percent of women were killed together with at least one child. With approximately 92 percent of Gaza’s housing units either destroyed or damaged, the shocking figures included in the CoI’s report helps substantiate the claim that Israel intends to target civilians, and women and children specifically.
The report also offers further support to the findings of two Al-Haq reports published in January 2025 –‘The Systematic Destruction of Gaza’s Healthcare System: A Pattern of Genocide’ and ‘How to Hide a Genocide: The Role of Evacuation Orders and Safe Zones in Israel’s Genocidal Campaign in Gaza’ – through its analysis of the gendered impact of the clear, systematic pattern of targeting health and reproductive facilities throughout Gaza and Israel’s policy of unlawfully issuing evacuation orders and forced displacement, as well as how said crimes facilitate the commission of sexual and gender-based violence.
Direct attacks on facilities offering sexual and reproductive healthcare services have impacted about 540,000 women and girls of reproductive age in Gaza. As detailed in Al-Haq’s report, Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has involved the wholesale destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza and wilfully denying critically ill and injured Palestinians access to lifesaving medical care as a means of imposing measures intended to prevent births and creating conditions of life calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza. The concerted effort to decimate Gaza’s health infrastructure has had a massive impact on women and girls specifically, with an obstetrician that spoke to the CoI referring to pregnant patients he had treated as “indirect victims of war”. This largely stems from being deprived of medication and treatment due to Israel’s complete blockade of Gaza and genocidal warfare, which has resulted in the de-prioritization of reproductive healthcare at the few remaining functional facilities and post-natal care not being available to some 60,000 maternity patients.
The ability of Palestinians in Gaza to reconstitute itself as a group has also been severely impacted by the nature of Israel’s genocidal campaign, which has had detrimental and lasting psychological and physical gendered consequences. Designed to prevent births, Israel’s genocidal policies, which include constant and intense aerial bombardment and killings, repeated forced displacement, psychological warfare, famine, and crippling the healthcare system, has had the desired effect of increasing the rate of miscarriages by up to 300 percent since 7 October 2023. Further proof of Israel’s imposition of measures intended to prevent births as discussed in Al-Haq’s report, is the CoI’s documentation of the complete destruction of Al-Basma IVF Centre, Gaza’s largest fertility clinic. The direct attack on the genetic bank caused all stored reproductive material – as well as 4,000 embryos – to be lost in its entirety. As of January 2025, no assisted reproductive services are operational or available in Gaza.
As regards to Israel’s concerted effort to empty almost the entire Gaza Strip of Palestinian life through the unlawful issuance of evacuation orders, which amount to forcible transfer and contribute to the genocidal acts of killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza – as extensively detailed in Al-Haq’s first report of the year – the CoI’s findings help showcase the gravity of Israel’s practice of forced displacement and its hidden impact on women and girls. More than 90 percent of women report suffering urinary tract infections due to bad sanitary conditions in overcrowded “safe zones”, where they have had to queue for hours to use the bathroom. The serious and lasting mental harm inflicted on Palestinian women and girls through their forcible transfer to densely packed areas that lack all basic necessities has been compounded by the subsequent increase in women’s caregiving responsibilities and the impact of displacement on power dynamics and gender relations, as well as the lack of access to support services or women shelters capable of providing a safe space.
Research conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), referenced by the CoI, indicates that “the risk to women and children posed by heavy explosive weapons with wide area effects is distinctive and exacerbated by the exposure to constant movement through evacuation orders and overcrowded living quarters which were also targeted”. Repeatedly stressed throughout Al-Haq’s report and since noted by the CoI is the fact that, in practice, “evacuations were not feasible as people were attacked during the process and also at the so called ‘safe zones’”. Furthermore, no distinction or exception was made for pregnant women, older women, maternity patients, women and girls with disabilities or others who could not or would not evacuate for a variety of reasons, including being postpartum. Rather than provide assistance and ensure their safety, Israeli forces erected checkpoints where families were separated and Palestinian men, women and children were subject to forced public nudity, including removing their veil, forced stripping and sexual humiliation, abuse and harassment. This treatment continued, and notably increased in gravity and intensity, in detention centres throughout the OPT and in Israel where detainees report being forced to undergo repeated, prolonged and invasive strip searches, both before and after interrogations, and routinely subjected to sexual threats, abuse and harassment, and even rape. The CoI also documented reproductive harms in detention, including that pregnant women held in an Israel Prison Service facility did not receive either sufficient or adequate food and were denied medical care, while women generally were denied menstrual products and any ability to maintain a sense of privacy or dignity.
The CoI’s report “More than a human can bear”: Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023, is an important step towards unearthing an extensive category of Israeli crimes committed by army and security officials and illegally transferred in settlers alike. Serving as a reminder of the need to adopt an integrated gender analysis in investigations into Israeli atrocities, the report comes at a crucial time. Since 1 March 2025, Israel has re-imposed a total blockade on Gaza – leaving 150,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women in urgent need of feeding and micronutrient supplements. Almost 92 percent of children aged 6-23 months and pregnant and breastfeeding women are not meeting their nutrient requirements due to Israel’s continued use of starvation as a method of warfare and its creation of conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza. Revealing the gender-specific harms resulting from a broad range of human rights violations and international crimes committed by Israel’s army, or with their tacit approval and support, is key to ensuring full accountability for its ongoing violations against Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank, and recognising the true, often hidden, toll of Israel’s genocidal violence.