DayofPal— Israeli soldiers and settlers are employing gender-based violence, including sexual assault and harassment, as a coercive tactic to forcibly displace Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank.
A new report by a group of international humanitarian organizations confirmed a surge in Israeli soldiers using of sexual assault against Palestinians amid a marked escalation in settler violence and population transfer.
The study, “Sexual violence and forcible transfer in the West Bank”, details accounts of escalating sexualized attacks and humiliation of Palestinians in the West Bank’s towns and villages and inside their homes since the start of the genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian women, men and children have reported attacks, forced nudity, invasive and painful body cavity searches, Israeli settlers exposing their genitals, including to minors, and threats of sexual violence.
Sixteen cases of sexual violence were recorded by researchers for the West Bank Protection Consortium over the last three years.
Other forms of reported violence include urinating on Palestinians, taking and distributing humiliating photographs of bound and stripped individuals, stalking women who are using latrines, and threatening sexual violence against women.
Sexualized attacks were hastening the displacement of Palestinians, according to the report.
More than two-thirds of households surveyed identified rising violence against women and children, including sexual harassment targeting girls, as a tipping point in their decision to leave, the report said.
The report is based on interviews with 83 Palestinians from across 10 villages in the Jordan Valley, the South Hebron Hills and the central West Bank.
Researchers found that more than 70 percent of the displaced people interviewed said that threats to women and children, particularly sexualized violence, were the decisive reasons for leaving their homes.
The report states that Israeli soldiers who were present during these incidents did not prevent or stop the attacks, and failed to properly investigate them.
“Participants described sexualized harassment as the moment when fear shifted from chronic to unbearable. They spoke of watching women and girls endure humiliation and of calculating what might happen next,” the report added.
One woman was subjected to a painful internal search by two female soldiers who entered her home with settlers then ordered her to remove her clothes for a full body search.
“She described being instructed to open her legs in a way that caused pain, and she described derogatory comments and touching of intimate areas,” the report said.
To limit the chance of coming into contact with Israelis who might assault or harass them, girls had quit school and women had stopped working, the report said.
It had also led to a rise in early marriage, as parents desperate to protect their daughters sought ways to move them away from the threats.
The Ramallah-based Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) has also documented the use of sexualized violence and harassment of Palestinian women and girls to fragment and displace villages.
The WCLAC said women in the occupied West Bank had reported sexual assault during searches, and abuse, including Israeli soldiers exposing themselves to girls at checkpoints and molesting them during searches. Humiliation had included the mocking of girls who were menstruating, she said.
“Girls aren’t going to schools, and you see early, forced marriages. These are minors, but we know their mothers and fathers are trying to protect them by sending them out of the area,” said Kifaya Khraim, the advocacy unit manager at WCLAC.
“Women lose their jobs because they can’t get to work because of the sexual violence and then deciding to stay at home.”
Khraim said she believed her team knew about only a fraction of the cases of sexualised violence by Israeli soldiers and settlers. “This is maybe 1% of the cases, and we had to do a lot of research in local communities just to earn the trust for people to tell us about these cases.”
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