Israeli soldiers using sexual assault to force Palestinians out of West Bank, report says

Palestinian women, men and children have reported attacks, forced nudity, invasive and painful body cavity searches, Israelis exposing their genitals, including to minors, and threats of sexual violence.

Sixteen cases of conflict-related sexual violence were recorded by researchers for the West Bank Protection Consortium over the last three years, a figure that is likely an under-reporting because of the shame and stigma faced by survivors.

“Sexualised violence is used to pressure communities, shape decisions about remaining or leaving their homes and land, and alter patterns of daily life,” the group of international humanitarian organisations said in a report.

The study, “Sexual violence and forcible transfer in the West Bank”, details accounts of escalating sexualised attacks and humiliation of Palestinians in their communities and inside their homes since 2023.

Other forms of reported violence include urinating on Palestinians, taking and distributing humiliating photographs of bound and stripped individuals, stalking women who are using latrines, and threatening sexual violence against women. The case studies are anonymised because of the stigma surrounding sexual violence.

Sexualised attacks were hastening the displacement of Palestinians, according to the report. More than two-thirds of households surveyed identified rising violence against women and children, including sexual harassment targeting girls, as a tipping point in their decision to leave, the consortium said.

“Participants described sexualised harassment as the moment when fear shifted from chronic to unbearable. They spoke of watching women and girls endure humiliation and of calculating what might happen next,” the report said.

Israeli soldiers present during abuse had repeatedly failed to prevent it or prosecute those responsible. One woman was subjected to a painful internal search by two female soldiers who entered her home with settlers then ordered her to remove her clothes for a full body search.

“She described being instructed to open her legs in a way that caused pain, and she described derogatory comments and touching of intimate areas,” the report said.

Men and boys were also targets of sexual assault and harassment. Last month, Israeli settlers stripped 29-year old Qusai Abu al-Kebash, from the northern Jordan valley community of Khirbet Humsa, put a zip tie on his genitals and beat him in front of his community and international activists, witnesses said.

In October 2023 settlers and soldiers stripped, handcuffed and beat Palestinians from the village of Wadi as-Seeq, urinated on them, attempted to rape one with a broom handle, and took photographs of them naked which they then distributed publicly.

Sexual violence and harassment had severe impacts even when communities were not displaced, and women and girls were particularly badly affected. To limit the chance of coming into contact with Israelis who might assault or harass them, girls had quit school and women had stopped working.

It had also led to a rise in early marriage, as parents desperate to protect their daughters sought ways to move them away from the threats. At least six families interviewed for the report arranged weddings for girls aged between 15 and 17.

The Ramallah-based Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) has also documented the use of sexualised violence and harassment of Palestinian women and girls to fragment and displace communities.

The WCLAC said women in the occupied West Bank had reported sexual assault, including forced penetration during searches, and abuse, including Israeli soldiers exposing themselves to girls at checkpoints and molesting them during searches. Humiliation had included the mocking of girls who were menstruating, she said.

“Girls aren’t going to schools, and you see early, forced marriages. These are minors, but we know their mothers and fathers are trying to protect them by sending them out of the area,” said Kifaya Khraim, the advocacy unit manager at WCLAC.

“Women lose their jobs because they can’t get to work because of the sexual violence and then deciding to stay at home.”

Khraim said she believed her team knew about only a fraction of the cases of sexualised violence by Israeli soldiers and settlers. “This is maybe 1% of the cases, and we had to do a lot of research in local communities just to earn the trust for people to tell us about these cases.”

Milena Ansari, the head of the occupied Palestinian territory department at Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, said the rise in sexualised violence and harassment in the occupied West Bank was happening amid a broader culture of impunity for attacks on Palestinians.

A recent decision to drop charges against soldiers for the filmed rape of an inmate at the Sde Teiman centre sent a particularly clear message.

“Israeli officials are effectively green-lighting the use of sexual violence, when they decide not to prosecute the most high-profile case, which is extremely well documented,” Ansari said. “There is a culture of accepting sexualised assault against Palestinians.

“There was a discussion in the Knesset about whether or not it is OK to rape a Palestinian. Even the prime minister didn’t say that Israel opposes raping detainees.”

Israel’s failure to prosecute settlers who attacked Palestinians in the West Bank led to the country’s former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, calling for the international criminal court to intervene to save Palestinians from “Jewish terrorists”, in an interview with the Guardian.

The report on sexualised violence as a tool of forced displacement drew on 83 interviews with Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank, including those facing settler violence and movement restrictions.

Participants included people at risk, those already forced to flee their homes, women, youth activists and community leaders. The findings are not meant to be a statistically representative sample of the West Bank.

The Israel Defense Forces did not respond to questions about allegations of sexual abuse by soldiers.