How the UN failed October 7th’s sexual violence victims

By Daniella Spoto, Policy Fellow 2025-2026. This article originally appeared in Modern Diplomacy.

Gang rape. Genital mutilation. Sexualized torture. Victory trophies. Deprivation of liberty. These are all examples of terms used in the findings of the United Nations (UN) (2024) inquiry into conflict-related sexual violence on October 7th. Maddeningly, the same report does not find enough evidence to conclude that the war crime of rape was weaponised by Hamas or militant Palestinian brigades. This is not bureaucratic oversight; it is a grotesque hypocrisy that devalues human suffering depending on who has endured it. 

Using the same materials as Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict, there is clear evidence that sexual violence on October 7th, was not sporadic, nor opportunistic. Rather, it was strategically used as a weapon of war to humiliate, violate, and exert an absolute sense of dominance over the state of Israel. Additionally, the caution surrounding declaring this is further evidence of Israel being held to an impossible double standard. The sexual violence conducted by Hamas is politically inconvenient for an international community that has already designated their villain.

The Rome Statute (2002) defines systemic rape as a war crime. Additionally, UN resolution 1820 (2008) affirms rape as a weapon of war and a crime against humanity.

International organizations such as the UN and the International Criminal Court (ICC) show no reluctance in addressing and condemning wartime and systemic sexual violence. 

Regarding the Bosnian war, on December 18th, 1992, the UN Security Council described ‘massive, organized detention and rape of women’ as ‘an international crime that must be addressed.’  Between 1994 and 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found evidence that sexual violence was used as a crime of genocide with the intent to destroy the Tutsi ethnic group. Finally, in 2025, under the mandate of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine stated that ‘We have concluded that Russian authorities committed the war crimes of rape and sexual violence as a form of torture.’

In the UN report following October 7th, there is no explicit reference to the strategic use of sexual violence. The contrast is insulting. The same patterns of strategic sexual violence have been formally recognized in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Ukraine; why are Israeli victims denied this recognition? 

In 2007, UN Action declared that wartime rape is ‘a military tactic, serving as a combat tool to humiliate and demoralize individuals, to tear apart families, and to devastate communities.’ In the case of the October 7th assaults, these objectives were to humiliate Israeli women and their families; they aimed to destroy the dignity of the Israeli people as a means of eradicating Israel as a state.

 The UN report goes as far as to say that there is evidence to support the ‘deliberate targeting of civilian women’ as well as ‘The Commission has identified a pattern of sexual violence in the attacks on 7 October’ yet fails to conclude that sexual violence was brutally employed as a means of arms. They didn’t fail to draw this conclusion in Bosnia, nor Rwanda, nor Ukraine.  

In response to this, the report emphasises the difficulty of attributing direct command to use sexual violence as a weapon, coupled by the challenge of deciphering which terrorist group these alleged commands came from. It is beyond nonsensical that a ‘pattern of sexual violence’ would not equate to the strategic and weaponised use of sexual violence. 

If you are not yet convinced of the double standard, the report consists of near endless pages of graphic evidence of strategic sexual violence. It does not shy away from admitting that women’s bodies ‘were used as victory trophies’. Yet, of course, this is not followed by a conclusion of strategic sexual violence. In another instance, a terrorist is seen to step on the victim’s head whilst declaring ‘God is Great’. Several examples reference the ‘humiliating’ and ‘degrading treatment’ as having been ‘filmed and disseminated’ including one in which a woman’s body is being held ‘by her hair in a gesture of triumph’. I struggle to understand how much more proof is needed. 

This is not opportunism, but deliberate humiliation and violation. The filming and dissemination of mutilated female corpses was not incidental; it was strategic. It forced trauma upon the victims’ families, Israeli citizens, and Jewish women globally. Equally, this footage was used to broadcast a ‘victory’ by parading women’s bodies as trophies of conquest; symbols of domination intended to terrorise a community far beyond the battlefield. Opportunistic rape is hidden; weaponised rape is filmed and disseminated. One thrives in silence. The other demands spectacle. 

The report’s omissions are even more unpalatable given Hamas do not deny these motives. Unsurprisingly, they maintain and celebrate their ‘by any means necessary’ rhetoric of eradicating Israel and the Jewish people. In the months leading up to the attacks Hamas officials publicly prayed for the ‘annihilation’ and ‘paralysis’ of Jews. The terror they unleashed on October 7th, expectedly, did not satiate their desires for ‘total war,’ instead promising to repeat the attacks ‘time and time again until Israel is annihilated.’

Hamas had genocidal intent on October 7th. Their sexual humiliation of women was not incidental; it was symbolic of their warped ideology. They laid their motivations bare, celebrating and filming them. The international community has chosen not to see.