By Quds News Network
New York (QNN)- The United Nations has added Israel to its blacklist for sexual violence against Palestinians amid mounting reports of sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons, which have sharply increased since the start of Israel’s Gaza genocide.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon announced on Thursday the decision, describing it as “blood libel” and a “political decision.”
According to Israeli media, the Israeli Prison Service will be included on the 2026 list, along with other Israeli entities that have entered a monitoring framework for the possibility of future inclusion.
In August, UN Secretary General António Guterres put Israel on notice that it might be included on the list in the 2026 annual report if it doesn’t take a series of steps.
“I urge the Government of Israel to release Palestinians who were arbitrarily detained, ensure that Palestinian prisoners are released in a dignified way, investigate and prosecute all allegations of sexual violence against Palestinian detainees, ensure humane treatment for all those held and implement prevention measures, including granting unhindered humanitarian access to detention facilities.”
In January 2025, it was reported that Israel was preventing Pramila Patten, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, from carrying out a comprehensive examination of war crimes allegedly committed by Hamas on October 7, because it would have required Israel to also allow the UN to investigate sexuap violence against Palestinians being held in Israel.
As a condition to an examination of Hamas’ alleged crimes, Patten had demanded that her staff be given access to the Israeli detention facilities where Palestinians are being held so they could also look into reports that soldiers sexually assaulted them. Israel, however, refused.
The UN move comes after the New York Times published a column by Nicholas Kristof detailing sexual violence by Israeli forces and settlers against Palestinians.
The report said Israeli forces train combat dogs to rape Palestinian detianees on the command of their handlers; Kristof said that “other Palestinian prisoners and human rights monitors have cited reports of dogs sexually assaulting prisoners.”
The testimony in the article was based on a report published last month by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, which is based in Geneva, as well as interviews conducted by Kristof himself.
The report adds to a growing body of evidence documenting systematic sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces, particularly since the start of the genocide in Gaza. Rights groups and media outlets have documented these abuses amid a sharp rise in the deaths of Palestinians in Israeli custody, alongside widespread reports of torture, mistreatment, and medical negligence.
Kristof’s article cited a report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, presented to the UN Human Rights Council last year that Israel’s security apparatus had become a system under which sexual violence is “standard operating procedures” and “a major element in the ill treatment of Palestinians”.
It also pointed to a Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) report that found nearly a third of Palestinian journalists detained by Israel had faced sexual violence.
In March, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in her report to the UN Human Rights Council that “the Israeli prison system has degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty” with acts that include rape of Palestinians with bottles, metal rods and knives.
“For skeptics, why not agree on Red Cross and lawyer visits for the 9,000 Palestinian ‘security’ prisoners?” Kristof wrote about X. “If you think these abuse allegations are false, such monitoring visits would be protective. So why not?”
The Israeli occupation government has not allowed the Red Cross to inspect the conditions of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons for years.
Recently, the Israeli military authorized five soldiers who sexually assaulted and raped a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility to return to reserve service after the charges against them were dropped. In 2024, a video was leaked showing the gang rape of a Palestinian detainee from Gaza by Israeli guards at Sde Teiman. The footage shows the detainee being selected from a larger group of bound detainees lying on the floor.
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The victim is then escorted to a wall, where guards, using their shields to hide their identity from the camera, proceed to rape him. The video was aired by Israel’s Channel 11. The attack is believed to have been so brutal that, after he was transferred to hospital, Israeli media reported that the victim was unable to walk.
According to a recent released report by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI), based on data obtained from the Israeli army and Israel Prison Service (IPS), 98 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons and military detention centers since October 2023, in many cases seemingly as a direct result of torture, medical neglect, and food deprivation by soldiers and prison officers.
28 May 2026
Source: countercurrents.org