UN puts Israel on sexual violence blacklist alongside Hamas

The Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council has condemned the United Nations’ decision to place Israel on a blacklist of entities accused of systematic sexual violence in conflict zones, alongside Hamas and ISIS, calling it a “disgraceful equivalence” that marks “an appalling low for a UN system consumed by relentless institutional anti-Israel bias.”

The decision by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, contained in the 2026 edition of the Secretary-General’s Report on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, claims the UN verified 13 instances of sexual violence against Palestinians by Israeli armed forces in 2025, in addition to 18 cases in 2023 and 2024.

AIJAC Executive Director Colin Rubenstein said the move was “utterly repugnant and inexcusable”.

“To compare the democratic State of Israel — with its independent judiciary, robust legal safeguards and mechanisms to investigate allegations of wrongdoing — with Hamas terrorists who systematically weaponised rape, sexual torture and mass murder on October 7, is utterly repugnant and inexcusable,” Rubenstein said.

The Zionist Federation of Australia has also condemned the decision, calling it a profound moral failure.

ZFA Chief Executive Officer Alon Cassuto said, “This decision rests on a grotesque false equivalence between Hamas, which systematically employed rape, sexual torture and other forms of sexual violence as weapons of war during its October 7 massacre, and Israel, a democratic state governed by the rule of law, judicial oversight and accountable institutions,” Mr Cassuto said.

“Any credible commitment to human rights requires distinguishing between a terrorist organisation that weaponises sexual violence as a matter of policy and a democratic state that investigates and prosecutes wrongdoing through established legal processes. By erasing that distinction, the UN is diminishing the gravity of Hamas’ crimes and failing the victims of the sexual atrocities committed on October 7.”

“This is not a contribution to the fight against sexual violence in conflict. It is a politicised act that undermines the credibility of international human rights mechanisms and forms part of a broader pattern of efforts within the UN system to single out and delegitimise the State of Israel.”

“The UN’s role should be to uphold universal standards and make clear moral distinctions. Equating Israel with terrorist organisations that systematically weaponise sexual violence does the opposite and diminishes the gravity of those crimes.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry said it had cut ties with Guterres’s office over the “shameful and absurd” decision, stating that “Israel will wait until a new UN Secretary-General is appointed” once Guterres’s ten-year term expires on December 31.

The ministry rejected the allegations as baseless, saying “Guterres is now exploiting his final months as Secretary-General to fabricate baseless accusations against Israel, completely devoid of any factual merit”.

Ambassador Danny Danon said whoever places Israel on the same list as Hamas “has lost all moral authority”. “They never really gave us the basis” for the decision, Danon claimed, stating “they don’t have any real basis to rely on. It could have been media reports or things like that.”

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, described the decision as “an obscene inversion of victim and perpetrator” and condemned it as “another modern blood libel”.

Sylvan Adams, president of the World Jewish Congress Israel, said the UN “has become nothing more than a subsidiary of the Muslim Brotherhood” under Guterres’s “morally bankrupt leadership”.

Israeli authorities have pointed to a New York Times opinion piece by columnist Nicholas Kristof as potentially influencing the decision, describing it as “blood libel” and vowing to sue the newspaper.

The UN report noted that alleged violations “consisted of rape, including with objects, gang rape, attempted rape, physical violence to the genitals, instances of targeted shooting of the genitals, touching of breasts and genitals, strip and cavity searches conducted without apparent security justification, forced nudity and threats of rape”.

AIJAC called on the Australian Government to “unequivocally reject this defamatory decision and demand accountability from a UN system that has once again betrayed its founding principles”.

Relations between the UN and Israel have deteriorated significantly since October 7, 2023, with Israel declaring Guterres “persona non grata” in 2024.

WITH THE TIMES OF ISRAEL