UN team arrives in Israel to investigate Hamas sexual violence claims

A United Nations envoy visiting Israel has called on alleged victims of reported sexual assault during the October 7 attack by Hamas to come forward.

Pramila Patten, the UN envoy for sexual violence in conflict, was in Israel to collect details on the allegations.

In a message to the alleged victims released by the Israeli president's office, Patten said: "Please come forward, please break your silence."

Upon arriving, Patten met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

Patten's visit was announced earlier this month by the United Nations, with the secretary-general's spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying she also intended to meet with recently released hostages.

It came as reports emerged that members of the New York Times staff were deeply divided over the legitimacy of a report published by the daily in late December, which reportedly detailed Hamas's "use" of sexual violence during its October 7 attack.

The report, which was written by Pulitzer Prize–winner Jeffrey Gettleman, with Anat Schwartz and Adam Sella, described in graphic detail alleged accounts of Hamas’s use of rape, sexual violence, and assault against women.

The article was being revised due to questions over the credibility of the claims it made, according to the Intercept.

One of NYT’s flagship podcasts, The Daily, had planned to run an episode on the report on 9 January but it was halted "amid a furious internal debate about the strength of the paper’s original reporting on the subject", the Intercept said.

The script of the still-unaired episode was revised to offer major caveats and allow for uncertainty over the allegations made in the original article, the Intercept said.

Just days after the NYT article was published, Israeli daily Haaretz reported that the country’s police said authorities were "having difficulty" finding "victims of sexual assault from the Hamas attack".

"The police are having difficulty locating victims of sexual assault from the Hamas attack, or people who witnessed such attacks, and decided to appeal to the public to encourage those who have information on the matter to come forward," Haaretz reported. 

"Even in the few cases in which testimonies were collected about sexual offenses committed on October 7, police failed to connect the acts with the victims who were harmed by them."

Adi Edri, a police investigator tasked with probing alleged sexual crimes committed during the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, told Haaretz there were "circumstantial indications" that there were survivors of the 7 October attack who police have yet to contact. 

Hamas has vigorously denied all allegations of sexual assault or mutilation by members of its armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, on October 7 or after that.

The group said they were willing to cooperate with international investigations into the allegations.