Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, chair of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, delivered a speech Wednesday at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where she presented the findings of the commission’s report on the sexual crimes committed by Hamas during the massacre and in captivity. Elkayam-Levy came to the UN at the invitation of UN Watch, a Geneva-based organization founded in 1993 that serves as a UN watchdog.
At the start of her remarks, Elkayam-Levy presented the harrowing findings that emerged from the commission’s work. “For more than two years, we documented crimes that many believed were impossible,” she said. “We documented 13 patterns of crimes, including rape, gang rape, sexual torture, intentional burning and the deliberate mutilation of victims’ faces and genitals. We documented crimes so cruel that existing legal frameworks are unable to fully describe them.”
The powerful UN speech by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy
(Video: UNTV)
According to her, “Victims were filmed as they were tortured and humiliated. Families were forced to watch the suffering of their loved ones. This terror was meant to be seen. Women’s bodies became a spectacle of war.”
At the end of her speech, Elkayam-Levy addressed those present at the Human Rights Council and sharply criticized the conduct of the international system after the Oct. 7 attack. “On a personal note, as someone who has bound her fate and life to the field of human rights, who believes in them and has taught them to generations of students, I must say it was truly heartbreaking for me to see your conduct after Oct. 7,” she said.
‘We heard her screaming’: The Civil Commission report
(Video: streamable)
She added that this conduct showed, in her words, “that compassion does not exist and that human rights depend on the identity of the victims and on a political agenda. Israeli victims received neither compassion nor protection from this system, but were abandoned to the hatred raging around the world and to a system that fuels it.”
The civil commission’s report, which was distributed and provided to conference participants, is based on a historical archive of testimonies and materials collected since the massacre. According to the commission, the report documents the depth and scope of the atrocities of sexual terror carried out on Oct. 7 and in captivity, and lays out a comprehensive factual, evidentiary and legal foundation intended to confront denial of the crimes documented in it.
The civil commission, led by Elkayam-Levy, has operated since October 2023 to document, research and legally analyze Hamas crimes against women, children and families. The report published by the commission several weeks ago received, according to its members, the support of international experts in international law, human rights and international criminal law, and has been presented to governments, international organizations, academic institutions and decision-making bodies around the world.
Executive director of UN Watch
( Photo: UN Watch)
Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said after the speech: “Today at the UN, Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy brought a simple but shattering truth: the victims of Oct. 7 deserve the same recognition, the same compassion and the same justice that the international community demands for every other victim of sexual violence. Human rights cannot be selective.”
Neuer also criticized UN officials who, he said, denied or downplayed the severity of Hamas’ crimes. “For far too long, many at the UN, including Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, denied, questioned, minimized the severity of Hamas’ crimes against Israeli women or chose to remain silent,” he said. “Dr. Elkayam-Levy’s testimony is a reminder that the facts can no longer be denied, and that those who failed these women must finally face the truth.”
On Tuesday, released hostage Ilana Gritzewsky arrived at the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council at the Palace of Nations in Geneva and reminded the organization of what many there would like to forget: the sexual violence committed against victims of the Oct. 7 massacre and against the hostages. Gritzewsky, who testified last year before the UN Security Council and described the horrors she endured, addressed Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women, and told her: “No evidence? I am living proof of sexual violence!”