Independent experts commissioned by the UN released a report Monday that accused Israeli forces for the first time of crimes against humanity, including rape and torture, against Palestinians in the West Bank.
In a report released Monday, the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory details testimonies concerning sexual assaults and torture allegedly committed by prison guards and soldiers against Palestinian detainees since October 7.
The commission is an independent investigative body for human rights violations, established by the UN Human Rights Council. Two weeks ago, the commission also published a report accusing Hamas of murdering 108 Gazan civilians, torture and violence.
According to one such testimony detailed in the recent report, female guards strip-searched a pregnant Palestinian, touching inside her anus and vagina. In another, guards beat a detainee and hurled sexist slurs while denying her access to the toilet and sanitary pads. She bled onto her clothes and interrogation chair.
“Torture, reproductive violence, rape and other forms of sexual violence form part of the broader attack directed against the civilian population in the West Bank,” reads the report. “Sexual violence has been used with the intent to displace, subjugate and destabilize the Palestinian people.”
In the West Bank, the report found that Israel “through military operations reinforced by sustained settler violence – has waged a widespread and systematic attack against civilians,” since October 7, 2023.
The commission also cites settler violence, concluding that settler attacks are part of the Israeli authorities’ assault on the Palestinian population.
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The report quoted senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, to show that the attack against Palestinians in the West Bank is organized and directed from the highest levels.
The report also quoted Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, chief of Israel’s Central Command, who reportedly said that Israel is “killing like we haven’t since 1967.”
According to the report, the number of deaths in the West Bank rose to about 500 per year in 2024 and 2025 – the highest figure since systematic documentation began in 2005.
The report notes that the commission investigated seven cases “of killings and acts causing bodily and mental harm against Palestinians” in the West Bank, that “were unarmed and did not pose a threat,” in the last three years. According to them, these seven cases indicate “more permissive rules of engagement” by the IDF.
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An Israeli settler overlooks members of Israeli forces blocking a road preventing Palestinians from reaching groves to harvest olives in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, Oct. 21, 2026. Credit: Leo Correa/AP
An Israeli settler overlooks members of Israeli forces blocking a road preventing Palestinians from reaching groves to harvest olives in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya, Oct. 21, 2026. Credit: Leo Correa/AP
The commission cited instances in which “the victims were unarmed and did not pose a threat; in the majority of instances, victims were children, including an infant.”
It was further alleged that Israeli forces used lethal force without warning, targeting the heads or upper bodies of the victims. “In all cases, security personnel should have been able to identify that the victim posed no imminent threat.”
The cases examined by the commission include the killing of a U.S. citizen during a protest near the settlement of Itamar, as well as gunfire directed at family vehicles in Hebron and the village of Tammun.
The commission said that it had recently documented six cases where Israeli guards were sexually violent toward male detainees from Gaza in the Sde Teiman military prison.
In one case, it says guards raped a Palestinian detainee with a stick, then forced him to put the stick in his mouth until he vomited. It also recalled another episode in which guards instructed a Palestinian man to urinate as they tied a plastic cord around his genitals.
The commission also mentions Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip despite the cease-fire reached in October 2025, and said Israel is continuing to commit a genocide in Gaza.
“In Gaza, the report found that Israeli authorities and forces continue to commit genocidal acts even after the so-called ceasefire.” According to the report, most of these alleged acts are caused by the expansion of Israeli control deep into the Strip during the ceasefire period, what’s labeled the Yellow Line.
During this period, at least 196 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire along the forces’ line of advance, including 18 women, 32 boys and 11 girls, according to the report.
The commission was initially headed by Indian jurist Srinivasan Muralidhar and then South African judge Navi Pillay, a recent Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
The report’s findings may be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or other judicial bodies.
Israel has long criticized the commission’s output and denied accusations of genocide in Gaza and sexual assault by its forces.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry responded to the report, saying it “is not a human rights report but a propaganda document detached from reality, aimed at undermining Israel’s right to self-defense, delegitimizing the Jewish state, and legitimizing jihadist terrorism against its citizens.”
The Commission of Inquiry (COI) report, issued under the auspices of the politicized UN Human Rights Council, is not a human rights report but a propaganda document detached from reality, aimed at undermining Israel’s right to self-defense, delegitimizing the Jewish state, and
In response, Israel’s mission in Geneva called for the commission’s dissolution and said on X that the report marked an example of the body’s “misinformation campaign to demonize the state of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal.”
The latest report of the Commission of Inquiry is yet another manifestation of its misinformation campaign to demonize the State of Israel and portray its very existence as criminal.
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Sde Teiman prison. Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz
Sde Teiman prison. Credit: Eliyahu Hershkovitz
In June, the commission published a different report accusing Israel of intentionally harming children in Gaza. The report dealt with the harm to Palestinian children by the IDF and settlers, and indicated that soldiers intentionally shot to harm children.
“The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces,” said Muralidhar in June.
The past report also addressed Jewish terror in the West Bank, stating that Israeli settlers attack Palestinians an average of 133 times per month, and that at times it was impossible to distinguish between settler attacks and IDF activity.
The report also criticized the treatment of minors in Israeli prisons, claiming that they suffer from violence and humiliation, including sexual humiliation, as well as a lack of food and medical treatment.
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Palestinians gather around the remains of a vehicle after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, Thursday. Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Palestinians gather around the remains of a vehicle after it was hit by an Israeli strike, in Gaza City, Thursday. Credit: Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
According to the report, Walid Ahmed, a 17-year-old boy from Jenin, died in Megiddo Prison despite being a healthy teenager. He allegedly died as a result of starvation and lack of medical care. The commission noted that this constitutes a war crime of torture, inhumane treatment and murder.
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