Despite ample evidence and the unequivocal report of UN Special Envoy Pramila Patten confirming the rapes on October 7, UN Secretary-General António Guterres refrained from adding the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas to the blacklist of sexualized violence.
Instead, he called for "an investigation into sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons."
Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan expressed outrage at the UN Secretary-General's decision, emphasizing that it attempts to downplay the reprehensible and inhumane crimes of Hamas for political reasons.
Although Pramila Patten's report presented clear evidence of systematic and deliberate sexualized violence and raised concerns about the ongoing captivity of Israeli and female hostages, Guterres only made a vague reference to the report without directly quoting Patten's findings.
At the same time, the blacklist of organizations engaging in sexualized violence includes groups operating in various conflict zones such as the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Mali, Haiti, Nigeria, and Sudan — but not Hamas.
However, the report clarifies that "the list does not claim to be exhaustive and only includes organizations for which there is reliable information about their crimes."
Regarding the mass rapes, sexualized torture, and murders perpetrated by terrorists in Israel on October 7, the UN states that "the investigation is in its early stages" and "it is not yet possible to confirm reliably whether these crimes were committed by Hamas activists or whether they were civilians from Gaza who entered Israeli territory alongside Hamas."
