The Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and multiple human rights organisations have accused Israeli security forces of widespread sexual violence against Palestinian women and detainees since the start of the Gaza war, with Palestinian advocates warning that the documented cases likely represent only a small fraction of what is occurring inside detention facilities and military-controlled areas.
The allegations, which span the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, have intensified scrutiny of Israel's detention practices as international investigators and advocacy groups publish increasingly detailed accounts describing rape threats, forced nudity, genital assaults and other forms of sexual abuse allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers and prison personnel.
At the centre of the latest claims is WCLAC, a Ramallah-based feminist legal organisation that says it has documented 75 cases involving rape, sexual assault or sexual torture against Palestinian women in Israeli custody. The organisation's advocacy manager, Kifaya Khraim, told the Irish Examiner the number likely reflects only a small portion of the true scale.
"This is maybe 1% of the cases," Khraim said. "We had to do a lot of research in local communities just to earn the trust for people to tell us about these cases."
According to accounts collected by WCLAC and cited by Prism Reports, women detained under Israel's administrative detention system described being stripped naked, photographed, beaten on their genitals and threatened with rape during interrogations and confinement. Some detainees reportedly said they feared sleeping inside detention centres because they believed assaults could occur overnight.
The testimonies extended beyond prisons and detention compounds. WCLAC documented incidents at military checkpoints where women alleged they were groped or subjected to invasive searches by soldiers. In one account cited by the organisation, a 14-year-old Palestinian girl allegedly stopped attending school after soldiers repeatedly "pretended to be searching her" while touching her inappropriately at a checkpoint she crossed daily.
Other accounts involved military raids into family homes. Women interviewed by WCLAC described being ordered to undress in front of relatives, including children and handcuffed male family members, while soldiers used dogs and threats to intimidate detainees during searches.
The allegations gained additional international weight in March 2025 when the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory concluded that sexual violence against Palestinian detainees had been "committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel's top civilian and military leadership."
The Commission stated that forced stripping, sexual assault and rape threats "comprise part of the Israeli Security Forces' standard operating procedures toward Palestinians." The report further concluded that several documented acts "amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."
Israeli human rights organisations have also issued similar findings. In August 2024, B'Tselem described Israeli detention facilities as a "network of torture camps," alleging "repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity, by soldiers or prison guards against Palestinian detainees as an additional punitive measure."
Separately, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor released an April 2026 report titled "Another Genocide Behind Walls," documenting allegations of rape, genital torture and assaults involving objects inside Israeli prisons and military detention centres. Researcher Khaled Ahmad said obtaining testimony had proven exceptionally difficult because of stigma and fear inside Palestinian communities.
"We knew there were dozens of cases of rape and sexual assault, but in a conservative society, it is extremely difficult for someone to come forward and say they were raped," Ahmad said.
A separate report by the West Bank Protection Consortium found that more than 70% of displaced Palestinian households surveyed cited threats of sexualised violence against women and children as a major factor behind their displacement. The consortium, led by the Norwegian Refugee Council and funded by 13 European governments, described sexual violence as part of a broader pattern of coercion driving Palestinian families from their homes.
"Sexualised violence is a tool in this larger realm of violence," consortium chief of party Allegra Pacheco told The New Arab. "It's not a pattern of a one-off type of case. It's continuous."
The growing body of accusations has also focused attention on accountability. In March 2026, Israeli authorities dropped charges against five soldiers accused of sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman detention facility. According to the original indictment, the detainee suffered severe injuries including cracked ribs, a punctured lung and internal tearing.
The U.S. State Department previously described the allegations in that case as "horrific." Former State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: "There ought to be zero tolerance of any sexual abuse, rape, of any detainees, period."
In January 2025, Israel also denied a request from Pramila Patten to investigate allegations involving sexual violence against Palestinians in detention. UN experts later warned that what they described as a "persistent climate of impunity" was allowing abuses to continue with little meaningful prosecution or oversight.
Israeli authorities have previously rejected allegations of systematic abuse in detention facilities and have argued that misconduct claims are investigated internally. However, rights groups say prosecutions remain rare. Israeli legal watchdog Yesh Din reported that 93.6% of investigations into ideologically motivated offences by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005 ended without indictment.
For Palestinian advocacy groups gathering testimonies, the larger challenge remains silence. Survivors interviewed by WCLAC described fear not only of retaliation from soldiers, but also of social stigma within their own communities. Khraim told Middle East Eye that some women reported receiving warning calls from Israeli officers after release from detention.
"They keep calling these women on their phones regularly, asking them not to speak to the media and not to talk about their stories," she said.
