A U.N. report released Thursday accused Israel of carrying out “systematic” gender-based violence during its 17-month war in the Gaza Strip, including by shelling fertility clinics and hospital maternity wards, causing maternal deaths by blocking aid deliveries, and subjecting male and female detainees to sexual humiliation or abuse.
The 49-page report, by a U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry, said that “Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.”