UN fails to black list Hamas for rape, Israel condemns decision while US is silent

• Published date: 24 April 2024
• Author: TOVAH LAZAROFF
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The blacklist was part of a larger annual report on sexual violence authored by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, which was completed this month and debated Tuesday at the United Nations Security Council

Guterres's April report described sexual violence in 18 conflict settings or situations of concern, including the Hamas-led October invasion of Israel and Russia's war against Ukraine.

But it found that credible evidence that met UN criteria was strong enough in only 11 of those situations such that it could blacklist the responsible parties. Neither Hamas nor Russia were among those parties that met that criteria and were not included on the list.

Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he was "disgusted" by the report in a statement released to the medial, while the UNSC debate took place on what would have been the first day of Passover in the US.

'Secretary-General sides with Hamas'

Katz called it a "failure in a long series of failures" by the UN and its institutions, which had not once condemned Hamas for the October 7 attack in which over 1,200 people were killed and 253 seized hostage.

"Guterres has turned the UN into an extremely antisemitic and anti-Israel institution during his tenure, which will be remembered as the darkest in the organization's history," Katz said.

He added that he was convinced that if the UN had existed during the Holocaust and in the lead-up to it, and "if the crimes of the Nazis had come up for debate, he [Guterres] would have refused to denounce them if it suited his political interests."

The United States Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, welcomed the report and mentioned its inclusion of the Hamas-led October 7 attack when she addressed the UNSC on Tuesday.

"From Nigeria to Israel, Myanmar to Sudan, Haiti to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, we have seen terrorist groups, criminal gangs, and non-state armed groups abducting and sexually exploiting women and girls. We've seen rape being used as a tool of war.

"And I'll note that the report calls for the release of the nearly three thousand Yazidis who are still missing, as well as hostages kidnapped by Hamas and other terrorist groups from Israel on October 7. We know from UN reporting that many of these hostages have experienced sexual violence while in captivity," she said.

But Thomas-Greenfield did not mention Hamas's omission from the blacklist of perpetrators attached to the report.

In describing the October 7 attack, Guterres's April...