The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations has called on the international body to remove Reem Alsalem from her position as U.N. special rapporteur on violence against women and girls after she denied evidence that Hamas weaponized sexual violence against Israelis during its terrorist attacks two years ago.
Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N., declared in a Saturday statement on social media that “[a]ny U.N. representative who denies Hamas rape must be removed from their post. Period.”
“This is a moral disgrace, an insult to the victims and their families, and a violation of every basic international standard. Israel will not allow Hamas’ horrific crimes to be whitewashed,” Danon continued.
Following Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre that resulted in the slaughter of at least 1,200 people — including Americans — and the abduction of over 240 others, survivors of the attack and former hostages have shared stories about the sexual assaults and rapes the terror group committed against women.
The Israeli ambassador also addressed António Guterres in his statement on Saturday, warning the U.N. secretary general that “silence is complicity.”
The U.N. did not respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
Alsalem’s comment that sparked outrage stems from an X post last Friday in which the U.N. special rapporteur asserted: “No Palestinian applauded rape in Gaza. No independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October.”
Alsalem made that assertion in response to an X user who commented on a separate X post in which she had responded to reports of alleged abuse of Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman detention facility. The post included a video of several people applauding Israeli soldiers during a court appearance.
The X user pushed back against Alsalem’s claim that “[i]mpunity for crimes committed against Palestinians is sanctioned by State and society.”
“I do not think you would take a few Gazans applauding rape as indicating that Gaza was incapable of delivering fairness,” the user wrote.
In a follow-up post on Saturday, Alsalem claimed that the statement she made in response to the X user had been “deliberately misrepresented.”
The U.N. special rapporteur then cited an Oct. 30 podcast interview with the Substack publication Savage Minds, claiming that she had “spoken at length on the reported sexual violence, including rape on and since 7 October.”
During the interview, the Savage Minds podcast host, Julian Vigo, and Alsalem discussed the U.N. report issued in March 2024 by the special representative of the secretary-general on sexual violence in conflict.
The report is based on the findings of U.N. special representative Pramila Patten during a trip to Israel that lasted from Jan. 29, 2024, through Feb. 14, 2024, which found “reasonable grounds” to believe that “conflict-related sexual violence” occurred during the Oct. 7 attacks.
Alsalem agreed with Vigo’s criticisms of the report, such as the short amount of time that the U.N. team had to collect information, as well as their limited access to forensic information and survivors of sexual violence.
“I totally agree with you that the media, certain organizations, and the world basically fell into the trap that Israel set up, which is to project that there was barbaric sexual violence being committed by these barbarian Palestinian men,” Alsalem said during the interview.
“And it was spun around and disseminated and very much used in order to then justify the genocide,” she argued.
The U.N. report noted that, despite the limitations, investigators “found that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered” across various locations of the Oct. 7 attacks. The bodies, which mainly consisted of women, were recovered with their hands tied and showed signs of having been shot multiple times, often in the head.
The Dinah Project, a legal research initiative, published a report earlier this year to “ensure that the tactical use of sexual violence by Hamas as a weapon of war receives the international condemnation and response it demands.”
The report includes at least 17 eyewitness accounts of multiple incidents of sexual assault, as well as testimonies from 15 former hostages and 27 first responders. In addition to personal testimonies, the report highlighted the large number of images and videos of the atrocities that occurred during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks, with “numerous items depicting sexual humiliation and assault.”
“These include the following: forced partial or full nudity, sometimes accompanied by public display; sexual humiliation by various acts of violence (e.g. kicking, jumping over, stomping) directed at the genitalia or the buttocks; possible mutilation of the genitalia,” the report stated.
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: samantha.kamman@christianpost.com. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
