Following weeks of silence by women's organizations and international bodies, UN secretary-general says issue needs to be 'vigorously investigated'; Israel's UN envoy: 'When it comes to Israeli women, sexual violence that has been proven and determined by state authorities still needs to be investigated'

Following weeks of silence by women’s organizations and international bodies, UN secretary-general says issue needs to be ‘vigorously investigated’; Israel’s UN envoy: ‘When it comes to Israeli women, sexual violence that has been proven and determined by state authorities still needs to be investigated’

Against the backdrop of widespread anger in Israel over the silence of women’s organizations and international bodies regarding the severe sexual violence used by Hamas terrorists against women in the attack on October 7, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced Thursday that these actions must be thoroughly investigated.

“There are numerous accounts of sexual violence during the abhorrent acts of terror by Hamas on 7 October that must be vigorously investigated and prosecuted,” Guterres wrote on the X platform

  • kromem@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    Most people commenting seem not to know that the UN a little over a decade ago did in fact investigate both sides and reported on war crimes from both Hamas and Israel.

    So comments like “when will the UN investigate Israeli war crimes” have an answer of both “in 2009” and “given historical precedent, yeah they likely will investigate both.”

    In fact, the 2009 investigation was initially only chartered to look at Israeli war crimes before being broadened to look at all crimes from any side of the conflict.

    The announcement of investigating sexual violence in a given attack isn’t occurring in a bubble, even if users jumping in to represent “their side” aren’t aware of the broader context before commenting.