An Israeli human rights expert has accused the United Nations of failing victims of sexual violence during the October 7 attacks, asking the UN Human Rights Council: “Where is your compassion?”
Dr Cochav Elkayam-Levy, chair of the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, addressed the council’s annual discussion on women’s rights in Geneva on Wednesday.
She presented findings from the commission’s report, Silenced No More, which documents alleged sexual and gender-based crimes committed during the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel and against hostages held in Gaza.
“For more than two years, we have documented crimes that are difficult to comprehend,” Elkayam-Levy told the council.
She said investigators had identified 13 patterns of abuse, including rape, gang rape, sexual torture, deliberate burning and the mutilation of victims’ faces and genitals.
“Victims were filmed while being tortured and humiliated. Families were forced to witness the suffering of their loved ones,” she said.
“This terrorism was intended to be seen. Women’s bodies became a battlefield and a spectacle of war.”
Elkayam-Levy said the evidence showed the violence was not random, but part of a calculated method intended to spread fear and maximise suffering.
“The truth is that Hamas created a blueprint for others to follow, putting women at risk worldwide,” she said.
She accused international human rights institutions of failing to respond to Israeli victims with the same concern shown to other victims of sexual violence.
“Speaking for so many Israeli women who care about human rights, we were heartbroken by your lack of response,” she said.
“Where is your compassion?”
She also called on UN officials who had questioned or disputed reports of sexual violence to acknowledge the commission’s findings.
“Israeli victims were not merely abandoned. They were singled out, dehumanised, delegitimised,” she said.
Elkayam-Levy said she had spent much of her career teaching and defending human rights, but the international response following the October 7 massacre had shaken her faith in the system.
“I came to understand that compassion is not applied equally, and that human rights are too often conditioned on the identity of the victims and political agendas,” she said.
“As a result, Israeli victims did not receive compassion or protection from this system.”
Her appearance came a day after former Israeli hostage Ilana Gritzewsky addressed a UN Watch event and confronted UN special rapporteur on violence against women Reem Alsalem over the international response to the attacks.
Gritzewsky has spoken publicly about the abuse she suffered after being abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz and taken to Gaza on October 7, 2023.
UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said the survivor’s testimony and the commission’s report provided both a personal account and a wider body of evidence.
“Yesterday, a survivor spoke. Today, the lead investigator presented the evidence,” Neuer said.
“The question is no longer whether these crimes occurred. The evidence is overwhelming.
“The question now is whether the United Nations will finally apply the same standards of compassion, credibility and accountability to Israeli victims that it demands for every other victim of sexual violence.”
Elkayam-Levy called on the Human Rights Council to formally recognise the commission’s findings.
“Will anything change?” she asked.
“We call upon you to recognise our findings. Let this be the beginning of change.”
The Civil Commission was established after the October 7 attacks to document sexual violence, torture, abduction and other alleged crimes committed by Hamas and its collaborators.
Its Silenced No More report was prepared with the assistance of experts in international law, human rights and international criminal law, and has been presented to governments, universities and international institutions.