UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations on Friday added Israel and Russia to a UN blacklist of countries suspected of committing sexual violence in conflict zones, a move that prompted Israel’s foreign ministry to say it would sever all ties with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

The latest report to the UN Security Council on conflict-related sexual violence goes a step further than last year, when Guterres put Israel and Russia “on notice” that they could be added to the list of parties “credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence”.

In 2025, the report stated, “the United Nations verified multiple incidents of conflict-related sexual violence, including as a form of torture, inflicted against 14 men, seven women, nine boys and one girl from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

It added 13 of the cases occurred in 2025, and 18 in 2023 and 2024.

“Violations consisted of rape, including with objects, gang rape, attempted rape, physical violence to the genitals, instances of targeted shooting of the genitals, touching of breasts and genitals, strip and cavity searches conducted without apparent security justification, forced nudity and threats of rape,” it said.

“Rape and gang rape, in some cases repeated, were perpetrated against nine victims, the majority from Gaza,” it said, adding that perpetrators included Israeli armed and security forces and occurred primarily during detention and interrogation and across several sites, including military camps and also at checkpoints and during Israeli military operations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The report said the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine had verified 310 cases of conflict-related sexual violence perpetrated by Russian armed and security forces.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2026