Overview
- The West Bank Protection Consortium’s study, released Monday, draws on 83 interviews across 10 Area C communities and documents at least 16 cases of conflict-related sexualised violence, with researchers warning of widespread underreporting.
- Accounts describe sexual assault, forced nudity, invasive body searches, threats of rape, indecent exposure and public humiliation, including an October 2023 incident in Wadi as-Seeq where Palestinians were stripped, beaten, urinated on and photographed.
- More than 70 percent of displaced households said threats to women and children were the decisive reason to leave, and families reported moving women and children or arranging early marriages to reduce exposure to harm.
- The report says soldiers present often failed to stop or investigate attacks, and last week the military allowed five soldiers accused in a separate Sde Teiman prison assault to return to reserve service after charges were dropped, which Amnesty International condemned as impunity.
- The findings situate these abuses within Area C, which remains under Israeli military and administrative control, where settlement growth, land and movement restrictions and home incursions create a coercive environment that drives displacement.