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UN commission to investigate Hamas sexual violence, appeal for evidence
A UN commission of inquiry investigating war crimes on both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict will focus on sexual violence by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and is about to launch an appeal for evidence, its chair told Reuters on Wednesday.
Chair Navi Pillay on Wednesday said she would pass the evidence onto the International Criminal Court and called for it to consider prosecutions amid earlier criticism from Israel and families of Israeli hostages that the UN had kept quiet.
“I’m now sitting as chair of a commission with the power to investigate this. So there’s no way we will not do so,” said Pillay, chair of the three-member commission of inquiry into abuses committed in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. Already, she said some people are keen to provide testimonies and that these would be handed over to prosecutors.
However, a major challenge for Pillay is that Israel has not cooperated with the commission, which it says has an anti-Israel bias. The commission could struggle to gather sufficient evidence to support future charges if access is not granted.Hamas has denied the abuses and was not available for comment. Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva said on Thursday the commission had “pre-existing biased prejudices against Israel”.
“Since the establishment of the COI (Commission of Inquiry) in 2021, Israel has made it clear: it will not cooperate with this discriminatory body and its Commissioners,” Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva said in a statement to Reuters on Thursday.
“Israeli victims will never get justice from this Commission of Inquiry.”
Evidence of rape used as a tool of war
Israeli authorities have already opened their own investigation into sexual violence during the most deadly attack on Israel in its history, including rape, after evidence emerged pointing to sexual crimes, such as victims found disrobed and mutilated.
Evidence about sexual violence includes testimonies given to Reuters since Oct. 7 by first responders at the sites of the attacks as well as military reservists who tended to the bodies in the identification process. Reuters has seen photos corroborating some of those accounts.
The UN Commission of Inquiry, set up in 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and composed of three independent experts, has an unusually broad mandate to collect evidence and identify perpetrators of international crimes. It is about to release a public “call for submissions” for evidence on Hamas’ sexual violence, said Pillay, who is a former UN human rights chief and International Criminal Court judge.
Sometimes, the evidence gathered by such UN bodies has formed the basis for war crimes prosecutions and could be drawn on by the International Criminal Court which has jurisdiction over both Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 and any crimes committed on Palestinian territory as part of Israel’s response including bombings in the Gaza Strip, the ICC’s top prosecutor said.
Pillay told Reuters she had met with prosecutors of the ICC since the Oct. 7 attacks to collaborate on sharing evidence.
“I was very impressed with the deputy prosecutor’s (Nazhat Shameem Khan) emphasis on how seriously she wishes to investigate the incidents of sexual violence, the complaints coming from Israel,” she said.
Pillay’s 18-person commission is requesting US and Egyptian help in convincing Israel to grant access to investigate, but Washington has also criticised the commission, as have European allies. At issue is that its investigations, unusually for the UN, have no end date and a perception among some Western states that it subjects Israel to disproportionate scrutiny.
Pillay described Israel’s bombing of Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 attacks as “absolutely shocking” and condemned the high death toll, which Gaza’s health ministry number at over 15,000.
Another priority is investigating the killing of reporters during the seven-week-old conflict, Pillay said, including Reuters’ visuals journalist Issam Abdallah who was killed on Oct. 13. Israel has said it does not deliberately target journalists and that it is investigating the incident.
The United Nations called the situation in northern Gaza “desperate” on Monday, sparking renewed criticism of Israel a year after it launched a major offensive against Hamas.
The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for northern Gaza, citing intelligence that Hamas was regrouping. This followed an offensive on the Jabaliya refugee camp.
Residents were urged to relocate to humanitarian safe zones. However, reports suggest that many have not followed the orders, likely due to exhaustion from repeated displacement throughout the year-long war. The UN estimates nearly 2 million Palestinians have been displaced, many forced to move as the Israeli army withdraws and re-enters various parts of the territory.
Humanitarian aid to Gaza, largely controlled by Israel through its oversight of all entry points, has been a contentious issue within Israel since the war began in October last year, drawing international scrutiny and criticism.
Israeli media reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is considering “The General’s Plan,” proposed by retired army generals. The plan calls for halting humanitarian aid to northern Gaza to increase pressure on Hamas and secure the release of 101 Israeli hostages. It assumes that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has not relented under the yearlong military campaign and suggests that withholding aid might force the desired outcome. The plan also proposes indefinite Israeli military control of the area. Netanyahu has denied any intention to permanently control or resettle Gaza, which Israel evacuated in 2005.
“What we are seeing seems like either an attempt to implement the first part of the plan, or a trial run of it,” Michael Milstein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told The Media Line. “But the Palestinian population is not cooperating, and it doesn’t seem to be working,” Milstein added. “It is unclear how such a plan will promote Israel’s goals. “The plan seeks to completely clear the area of civilians. Any who remain would be considered combatants by the Israeli army, allowing troops to engage them. The army has declined to comment on whether it is following this plan or acting under other orders.
“The Hamas terrorist organization uses the residents of Gaza as human shields and prevents them from obeying IDF calls to move to safe areas,” Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, the Israel Defense Forces’ Arabic spokesperson, posted on X Monday, blaming Hamas for the lack of civilian cooperation.
Preventing Hamas from regrouping
The army’s latest move to reposition in Gaza is part of ongoing efforts to prevent Hamas from rebuilding. Following an intense ground operation early in the war, the IDF has significantly reduced its presence, with relatively few troops now stationed in Gaza. “This represents a moment of strategic embarrassment,” said Milstein. “Israel has been at an intersection for a long time without making a decision. The doctrine in which it believed it could topple Hamas without 24/7 occupation of Gaza is a failed one.”
With its forces engaged in a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and possibly facing an imminent confrontation with Iran, the Israeli military is likely too stretched to maintain a larger presence in Gaza.
“This leaves no other option than to make a deal with Hamas, that would see an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the release of hostages,” said Milstein. The IDF controls several areas in Gaza, while leaving others under Hamas’ control. Israel forces are present at Gaza’s border with Egypt, the perimeter along the Gaza Strip, and in the northern part of the territory.
Hard-liners in the Israeli government are advocating for a full occupation of the Gaza Strip, while Israel faces mounting criticism over the humanitarian situation in the impoverished territory.
“The UN reports that no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly 2 weeks. Israel must urgently do more to facilitate the flow of aid to those in need. Civilians must be protected and must have access to food, water, and medicine. International humanitarian law must be respected,” US Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris posted on X Monday.
The IDF Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories reported that 83 trucks carrying humanitarian aid and 12 gas and fuel tankers entered Gaza on Monday. The war between Hamas and Israel began after Hamas launched a large-scale attack on southern Israel. The assault, which shocked the nation, left 1,200 Israelis dead, thousands injured, and over 250 taken hostage. Since the war began, 154 hostages have been released, some of them deceased. The fate of the remaining hostages remains unclear, with dozens believed to be dead.
UNOCHA figures, based on reports from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, indicate that over 42,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began. While Israel asserts that many of the casualties were armed combatants, international and Palestinian sources report a high civilian death toll. These figures have not been independently verified but have nonetheless led to criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war.
As the war rages, Israel continues to pound Gaza in the hopes of achieving the two main goals its government has set for the war— toppling Hamas and securing the release of hostages. A year into the conflict, international organizations have consistently warned that Gaza is on the brink of famine. Israel, however, denies any threat to food security, insisting that it maintains a steady flow of humanitarian aid into the territory. Some Israelis have advocated using humanitarian aid as leverage to pressure Hamas, which currently controls its distribution, thereby maintaining its grip on Gaza. Several Israeli officials have suggested that prominent Gaza families or clans could govern the territory instead of Hamas. However, the Israeli government has ruled out reinstalling the Palestinian Authority (PA) as a replacement, citing its support for terrorism and its failure to condemn the October 7 attack on Israel.
“If Palestinians had to choose between Hamas or Gazan clans to rule Gaza, they would choose Hamas,” Mkhaimar Abusada, chairman of the Department of Political Science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza and visiting scholar at Northwestern University, told The Media Line. “If Israel would allow the PA to run Gaza again, the goal of marginalizing Hamas will be easier. One must keep in mind that the PA would not step foot in Gaza without Hamas’ approval.”
“The Israeli army, which has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, is not trusted by Gazans to distribute aid,” Abusada added. “The overwhelming majority of them look at the Israeli army as murderers and they will not accept food from them.” However, if left with no other option, Gazans may be forced to accept aid from the Israeli army.
“There is no competition for Hamas in Gaza,” said Milstein. “They continue to control the area, through civilian governance. They survived Israel’s massive offensive and are still the dominant force in Gaza, they survived by being like chameleons successfully changing constantly. Without a full occupation, this will not disappear despite Israel trying to make it so.”
Hamas ousted the PA from Gaza in 2007. Violent images of Hamas fighters throwing PA employees from rooftops in Gaza City highlighted the deep animosity between the two rival Palestinian factions. Years of reconciliation efforts have failed, despite repeated claims to the contrary. However, recent negotiations in Cairo have reportedly brought the two sides closer to an agreement on postwar Gaza.
“Hamas has accepted in principle to allow the PA to run the Gaza Strip, they have still now agreed that Hamas is more open to this scenario,” Abusada said.
The likelihood of this scenario remains slim, due to a complex set of circumstances that have significantly weakened the PA over the past decade. With Hamas still in power in Gaza and the Israeli military stretched too thin to remove them, humanitarian aid remains at the heart of the conflict. With no signs of a ceasefire on the horizon, civilians will continue to pay the price.
Michael Bar Zohar, at 86 one of Israel’s great and most prolific historians, especially regarding security issues, published a book called “Iron Swords, Bleeding Hearts” less than a month ago on the failures leading up to October 7 and the current war.
The book closes just as Hezbollah is considering its response to the IDF’s killing of its military chief Fuad Shukr on July 30, which turned out to be the August 25 IDF rout of Hezbollah’s attempted retaliation, which itself in turn pushed Israel into having the audacity to decapitate Hezbollah starting in mid-September.
Bar Zohar uses essentially all open sources on the most current events, but has a priceless number of anecdotes and unique perspectives from his exclusive coverage of Israeli titans like David Ben Gurion, Shimon Peres, and others as he leads into how Israel and the Middle East got to where they are now.
But the most important aspects of Bar Zohar’s book are forward-looking: How must Israel, and the West for that matter, understand the challenge of fundamentalist Islamist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran?With the anniversary of Hamas’s October 7 invasion passing this past week and the invasion of Lebanon moving forward at full throttle, the most practical lessons from Bar Zohar probably have to do with connecting those two events in terms of understanding how the current war in Lebanon must end.
Extrapolating from Bar Zohar’s narrative, predictions, and views, the war in Lebanon must end with Israeli security being dependent on Jerusalem and its allies being able to enforce its security and not merely on hopes of “converting” Hezbollah into accepting Israel and joining the Western world.
Bar Zohar writes, “I began writing this book on October 8, 2023, after a sleepless night. I had turned off my TV set after watching, on a foreign channel, the horror in the settlements at the Gaza border, and, for a change, the boisterous street protests in favor of Hamas in foreign capitals.”
“I knew that this crucial chapter of history would be distorted and falsified by lies and fake news, as well as emotions, blind fanaticism, insane hatred of some and foolish adoration of others. I felt that my duty was to tell the truth about these apocalyptic events that shook the world. But to tell the truth now, today, not in a year or two or five. Now.” he continues.
Here, Bar Zohar was cognizant that October 7 was not just about killing 1,200 Israelis, taking 250 hostages, and the failures that led to this – but how this event and Israel’s response would reshape the Middle East afterward.
Failures that lead to October 7
Aside from a harrowing account of the numerous political, intelligence, and operational failures leading into October 7 which are meticulously laid out in the first 16 chapters, there are some later chapters which paint some of the broader trends which have developed since November 2023 and still confront Israel now.
His coverage of Israel’s first major assassination in Lebanon on January 2, 2024 – of Hamas deputy chief Salah al-Arouri – is indicative.
Recounting the event, he says, “Sheik Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, took Al Arouri’s assassination very seriously. Only a few days before, he had met with Arouri and advised him to beware, as the Israelis targeted him. For Nasrallah, the location of the hit was symbolic. During the Second Lebanon War, Israeli warplanes had pulverized the Dahia neighborhood, where the headquarters of Hezbollah were located.”
With a bit of unforeseeable irony and almost prophetic foreshadowing for how Nasrallah eventually met his end from an IDF air strike in Dahia on September 27, Bar Zohar continues. “Nasrallah himself had to run for shelter to an underground bunker in Dahia. After the war ended [referring to the 2006 Second Lebanon War], he stayed in his bunker for years, avoiding any public appearances. Even his speeches were broadcast from the bunker. He thought he was safe in Dahia – and here [after Al Arouri was killed], all of a sudden, he found out that Israel could readily come and go as it pleased. If Arouri was not safe there, neither was Nasrallah. The assassination also proved that Israel had very reliable spies in Beirut.”
Bar Zohar recounts how Nasrallah was taken by surprise when the IDF killed Al Arouri as well as a few days later when the IDF killed Wissam Al Tawil, the deputy commander of the elite Radwan unit, with Al Tawil also being the brother of Nasrallah’s third wife, Hadda Al Tawil.
Nasrallah struck back at some IDF bases in the North, but without causing significant damage and in a relatively weak way, with Bar Zohar commenting, “These Hezbollah attacks were very close to acts of war, but did not cross the blurred line between a border conflict and a war…But once again the upshot failed to meet expectations,” for what Hamas had hoped for from Hezbollah in helping them fight Israel.
The bottom line is that, as indicated by these earlier rounds, once Israel switched gears into hitting Nasrallah much more complicated, he was not ready for the IDF’s fury and was taken by surprise – much as he had been by Hamas’s invasion on October 7.
Next, Bar Zohar briefly explores in one of his last chapters the implications of the Iranian attack, the Israeli counterattack, and the help Israel received from Sunni allies to defend itself in April.
He observes, “And yet, the most important result of these tumultuous days was the baptism of fire of the new American-Arab-Israeli coalition that augured a new era in the Middle East. A new era is indeed beginning, bringing tremendous changes to the lives of millions and carrying a faint glimmer of peace. The new coalition, strengthened by new Israeli leaders, may augur the creation of a new Middle East.”
“The coalition that defeated the Iranian juggernaut in the sky may transform into a solid alliance that could reshape the entire region, establish a new administration in Gaza, and bring moderation to these embattled lands. This is the dream for the future,” he continues.
But by the end of the book, Bar Zohar notes that the killing of Shukr, as well as the killing of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, were “the start of a new stage in the war, with the focus moving from the Gaza strip to the North. That seemed to be the fading away of the Iron Swords and the beginning of a new confrontation between Israel, America, and their allies – and the ‘Axis of Evil’ in the north.
In terms of how the conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Iran should end, he warns that military force will be continually needed alongside any diplomatic efforts and cautions not to leave too much based on “deals” with such parties.
“One can reason with extremists as long as they understand logic and have a modicum of common sense. Israel could negotiate with the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and his supporters, as their movement, Fatah, was a nationalist, not a religious one. But when the rival’s ideology is based on religion – no reasonable arguments can influence it,” writes Bar Zohar.
Although Bar Zohar was formerly a Labor party member and Arafat was far from an ideal peace partner, his book’s conclusion is clear that any final security situation with Hezbollah and Iran must be enforceable by the Israeli military.
A diplomatic deal may end the conflict as all conflicts end, but after seeing how Hezbollah abused UN Resolution 1701 for 17 years, Bar Zohar clearly feels that resolving the current conflict with Hezbollah cannot rest merely on an, even strengthened, international peacekeeping force hopefully doing its job.
He finishes with a dark prediction that “The Israel-Hamas confrontation is the first battle of a new World War, a war between the modern world and the ferocious fanatics of radical Islam. A new kind of war. Not the wars to which the world has grown accustomed, fought with armies, tanks, planes, and infantry firing and charging and shouting Hurray – but a war against enemies who aim to destroy the free world from within.”
Special forces killed four terrorists in a vehicle during an operation in Nablus in the West Bank, army radio reported on X/Twitter Wednesday evening.
They were seen armed moments before they were killed, footage published by army radio showed.
A source told Kan that the terrorists killed in Nablus were a squad of terrorists from the Balata Camp that were preparing to carry out an attack against Israelis.4 מחבלים חוסלו ברכב במהלך פעולה של כוחות מיוחדים בשכם, כך הם תועדו רגע לפני שנהרגו pic.twitter.com/mFUGTHFqYg
— הוד בראל Hod Barel (@hod_barel) October 9, 2024
Riots in Nablus
Riots broke out on Wednesday afternoon, during which the IDF killed four terrorists following intelligence provided by the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Maariv reported.
Commander of the Balata Battalion of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade (which is aligned with Fatah) Issam a-Salaj was allegedly eliminated in the operation, Walla noted.
This is a developing story.
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