UN Official In Israel To Collect Info On Hamas's Alleged Sexual Violence

A top UN official arrived in Israel Monday to gather details over alleged sexual assault by Palestinian militants during Hamas’s October 7 attack, the Israeli foreign ministry said.

Pramila Patten, the UN envoy for sexual violence in conflict, arrived with a delegation and held several meetings on the first day of her trip.

“Patten was invited by the foreign ministry so that she could receive an unmediated impression of the extent of the atrocities and then bring Hamas’s crimes to the attention of the proper international authorities,” the ministry said in a statement.

During her trip Patten will meet survivors, witnesses and representatives of security forces to collect evidence of sexual violence committed against women and men during the attack, the ministry said.

Patten will also tour southern Israel where Hamas militants had unleashed their deadly attack that resulted in the deaths of around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

During the attack militants also seized around 250 hostages, of whom Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, including at least 28 believed to have been killed, after about 100 were released in a prisoner swap in November.

The visit was announced earlier this month by the United Nations, with the secretary-general’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying Patten also intended to meet with recently released hostages.

Following the October 7 attack, Israel launched a relentless military campaign that has killed at least 26,637 people in the besieged Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Israel has criticised the UN for not responding quickly enough to victims’ accounts of rape and sexual assault allegedly committed during Hamas’s incursion into Israel.

Patten’s trip is intended to “identify avenues for support,” Dujarric said.

Accounts of sexual violence emerged from the Hamas attack but a scarcity of survivor testimonies and forensic evidence has made it difficult to assess their scale.