Last Updated on January 12, 2026 by Serena Zehlius, Editor
The United Nations Human Rights Council (OHCHR) received reports describing disturbing accounts of the Israeli army keeping Palestinian women in cages without food or water and of soldiers stripping women naked and taking photos, which they then posted online.
Remember the outrage of people on the Right after reports of Hamas raping women came out? They were saying people weren’t condemning the acts by terrorists fast enough.
So where are those same people now? Aren’t they going to condemn the IDF for using sexual assault as a weapon of war?
Some pundits responded to people expressing concern about the slaughter of innocent Palestinians with: “Hamas raped Israeli women! You don’t see IDF soldiers doing that in Gaza!”
Yes, you do.
OHCHR Statement
From reporting by Sky News:
“Reports of Israeli officers raping and sexually assaulting detained Palestinian women and girls have been received by experts at the United Nations Human Rights Office.
“Credible” allegations revealed in a statement issued today by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) included that women and girls have been arbitrarily executed in Gaza, often together with family members including their children.
“We are shocked by reports of the deliberate targeting and extrajudicial killing of Palestinian women and children in places where they sought refuge, or while fleeing. Some of them were reportedly holding white pieces of cloth when they were killed by the Israeli army or affiliated forces,” the experts said.
“We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence.””
The OHCHR said the experts noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.
They said they also expressed serious concern about the arbitrary detention of hundreds of Palestinian women and girls, including human rights defenders, journalists and humanitarian workers, in Gaza and the West Bank since 7 October.
It said many have reportedly been subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment, denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and severely beaten.
“On at least one occasion, Palestinian women detained in Gaza were allegedly kept in a cage in the rain and cold, without food,” the agency added.
The UN experts said: “We remind the Government of Israel of its obligation to uphold the right to life, safety, health, and dignity of Palestinian women and girls and to ensure that no one is subjected to violence, torture, ill-treatment or degrading treatment, including sexual violence.”
What are we doing?
Every day it gets more and more difficult to stomach the fact that our government supports the far-right government of Israel no matter what they do. We’ve sent them the bombs used to kill Palestinian civilians —seemingly ignoring what the IDF did months ago (they wrote the names of people in the United States who have spoken out against the indiscriminate killings on the very bombs they’re dropping in Gaza).
Not to mention the billions of dollars in aid we send to Israel, a country with universal health care, paid family leave, and other social programs we can only dream of in the US.
They can afford to take care of their citizens AND fund the military, yet we are sending them aid? Israel seems more than capable of funding its own genocide.
We should also ask ourselves: As our ally, what has Israel done for us besides drag us into wars they start, making us look terrible in the eyes of the international community? Yet we provide weapons and monetary aid to Israel on a regular basis.
