The UN special rapporteur on violence against women, Reem Alsalem, expressed alarm regarding the increasing rape cases against Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip.
Alsalem said in a post on X that “it is abhorrent that such reports of sexual violence continue unabated – not to mention that this is but one of multiple forms of violence that Palestinian women are subjected to on the basis of being Palestinian and being women.”
“Rape and other forms of sexual violence can constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, or a constitutive act with respect to genocide! It must stop!” she added.
The UN rapporteur called for an immediate halt to cases of sexual violence against Palestinian women.
Along the same line, the Executive Director for Women’s Affairs at the United Nations, Sima Bahouth, stressed the urgent need for a ceasefire in Gaza, given the suffering that women are enduring there.
“Women in Gaza give birth without water. They have no food, no tents, no toilets,” she wrote in a post on X.
“They are living the unimaginable. What women in Gaza need right now is a ceasefire and relief,” she pointed out.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) earlier announced that an average of 63 women, including 37 mothers who leave their families behind, are killed every day in Israeli occupation’s attacks in Gaza.
Since the start of the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, there has been a rise in the number of deaths and injuries among women and mothers, severely impairing the daily lives of those affected. According to official statistics; around 17,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip have been living without their parents since the genocide began, with some of them losing both parents due to killing, arrest, or disappearance.
Given that the international protection of civilians, especially women and children, is an international legal and moral obligation, the international community must put an end to the ongoing Israeli massacres against women and mothers in Gaza, and to ensure their immediate protection.
