U.N. inquiry verifies more cases of sexual violence in Israeli detention

A pregnant detainee was strip-searched repeatedly and beaten, and in Damon prison she was made to undress completely. A man held at Megiddo prison in 2025, blindfolded during interrogation, is among the cases of sexual violence the commission says it has verified. He did not receive any medical treatment.

Both accounts are in a report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. Since its March 2025 report, the commission says, it has verified four additional cases of sexual violence in Israeli detention, two involving West Bank victims. It also documented six further cases of sexual violence and torture against male detainees from Gaza at Sde Teiman, a military detention site.

The commission notes continuing invasive strip searches of detainees, which it describes as amounting to sexual and reproductive violence.

The findings are in report A/81/430 to the U.N. General Assembly, dated Oct. 14 and announced by the U.N. human rights office on Oct. 26. The office says the commission found the crimes against humanity of extermination, persecution, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence. The commission received a response from Palestine, it says, but none from Israel.

Sexual violence has been used with the intent to displace, subjugate and destabilize the Palestinian people.— U.N. Commission of Inquiry, as quoted by the U.N. human rights office