UN Adds Israeli Entities to Sexual Violence Blacklist
Rape is ‘part of a strategy to dominate and destroy the Palestinian people’.
by Sophia Sheera
28 May 2026
The United Nations has added several Israeli entities to a blacklist of countries that commits sexual violence in war zones.
The Israeli Prison Service is one of several Israeli authorities to be added to the list, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The move follows widespread reports of Israel using sexual violence to terrorise and torture Palestinians amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza.
A March 2025 UN report concluded that Israel systematically uses sexual violence against Palestinians as a strategy of war to “dominate and destroy the Palestinian people”.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem said in a report in January that sexual violence against Palestinians held by Israel happens in a network of torture camps.
Last week, freed Global Sumud Flotilla activists said Israeli guards had raped or sexually assaulted at least 15 people while they were in detention.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said he would freeze cooperation with the office of UN secretary general Antonio Guterres in the wake of Israel’s inclusion on the blacklist.
Sophia Sheera is a journalist in Novara Media’s social media team.