The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls said on Sunday attacks on Palestinian women and girls account for a major part of the regime’s “systematic strategy of genocide.”
Reem Alsalem stressed that killing Palestinian women simply because of their gender constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity.
The UN expert further underscored that the deliberate targeting of women and the destruction of reproductive health services are being weaponized as tools of Israeli genocide in Gaza.
She noted that the deliberate targeting of women and destruction of Gaza’s reproductive health services have been used as weapons in Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
She stressed that a comprehensive review of Israel's actions reveals that the deliberate targeting of Palestinians' reproductive capacity is a key aspect of this strategy.
Alsalem referred to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which also prohibits acts of genocide aimed at preventing reproduction within a particular group.
She elaborated that when considered together, the destruction of the healthcare system, the abandonment of newborns to their fate and the creation of intolerable conditions for pregnant and breastfeeding women all serve as instruments of Israeli genocidal violence, aimed at the total or partial destruction of the Palestinian population.
Alsalem added that about 800,000 women in Gaza have been forcibly displaced from their homes, and nearly one million women and girls are suffering from severe food insecurity.
The statement comes around 20 days after the Israeli regime supposedly ended its 15-month-long war of genocide against Gaza that claimed the lives of at least 47,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
Despite claiming to have ended the brutal military onslaught, the regime’s military has gone on to kill around 500 more Palestinians across the coastal territory.