A bipartisan group of 33 Senators called on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to establish “an independent fact-finding effort” investigating sexual violence against Israeli women during the attack on October 7.
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The fact-finding effort would collect “survivors’ and witnesses’ testimonies.”
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“An independent investigation is a necessary step to hold perpetrators accountable, support survivors, and provide justice for victims,” the senators wrote in the letter, led by Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.; Joni Ernst, R-Iowa; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Ben Cardin, D-Md.
A UN commission is already looking into war crimes committed by both sides and promised to “pass along any evidence to the International Criminal Court,” according to NBCNews. Israel has not cooperated with the commission. As with most UN bodies, there’s a decided bias against Israel.
That’s why the Senators want an “independent commission,” under the aegis of the UN but separate, to examine the evidence and collect testimonies.
“Tasking the one-sided [commission of inquiry] to investigate these atrocities undermines the effort’s credibility, creates the strong potential for biased outcomes, and provides no measure of justice for the victims and survivors,” said the letter, which alleges that the commission has “a history of bias and unfairly singling out Israel.”
The senators also accused U.N. Women, an entity dedicated to gender equality and women’s empowerment at the U.N., of failing to quickly condemn the atrocities.
U.N. Women said this month that it “unequivocally” condemned the Hamas attack and related concerns over sexual violence.
“This is why we have called for all accounts of gender-based violence to be duly investigated and prosecuted, with the rights of the victim at the core,” it said.
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“Too many prominent international organizations and leaders have chosen to dismiss, downplay, or outright deny Hamas’s widespread use of sexual violence and rape,” Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen, one of the signatories to the letter said. “The UN must acknowledge, forcefully denounce, and independently investigate Hamas’s atrocities.”
The slowness of UN Women’s response to the sexual atrocities committed by Hamas was despicable.
It took eight weeks for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to issue a condemnation of Hamas for committing sexual atrocities against Israeli men and women. Then, 57 days after the brutal Hamas attacks, the women’s rights group UN Women released a statement condemning the events of October 7.
“We unequivocally condemn the brutal attacks by Hamas on Israel on 7 October. We are alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during those attacks,” the statement continued.
They never named Hamas in their condemnation.