The United Nations has warned Israel and Russia that their militaries face being listed as parties suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict in light of credible evidence of violations, AFP reports.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’s report said the two countries risked being added to a list of parties thought to use sexual violence, including rape, in conflict that includes Myanmar’s military, Sudan’s army and Hamas.
In the case of Israel, the report alleges “credible information” military and security forces perpetrated patterns of sexual violence, including “genital violence, prolonged forced nudity and repeated strip searches conducted in an abusive and degrading manner”.
In February, the Israeli army said it had charged five soldiers for abusing a Palestinian detainee at a site used to hold Palestinians following the start of the war on Gaza. Among the charges was an allegation that the accused had stabbed a man with a sharp object “which had penetrated near the detainee’s rectum”.
The report said, however, that Israel’s refusal to grant access to inspectors had frustrated her ability to determine patterns and trends. Israel rejected the report’s findings and called a letter that accompanied it from Guterres “unusual”.



























