Responding to a report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel published today concluding that Israel has systematically used sexual, reproductive and other gender-based violence against Palestinians since October 2023 and carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians in Gaza by destroying women’s healthcare and reproductive health facilities and blocking access to reproductive healthcare, Amnesty International’s Senior Adviser on gender, conflict and international justice, Lauren Aarons, said:

“These damning findings are another clear illustration of the devastating impact of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its use of gender-based violence to oppress Palestinian women and girls across the Occupied Palestinian Territory and to use sexual violence to perpetuate oppression on Palestinians of all genders, especially in Israeli detention centers.

“The report exposes yet again the horrors of Israeli atrocity crimes in Gaza, and how they specifically impact women. They follow the findings of Amnesty International’s own December 2024 report which concluded that Israeli authorities committed and are committing genocide in Gaza. Acts that formed part of Israel’s genocide documented by Amnesty International included the ​killing and seriously injuring tens of thousands of women and girls and deliberately subjecting them to conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, in whole or in part.