“More than a human can bear”: Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023 by Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel

Sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities have been systematically destroyed across Gaza, including maternity hospitals and maternity wards of hospitals and Gaza’s main in-vitro fertility clinic. Israeli authorities deliberately destroyed such healthcare facilities rendering them non functional, while simultaneously imposing a siege, and preventing humanitarian assistance atscale, including necessary medications and equipment to ensure safe pregnancies, deliveries and neonatal care. Israeli authorities have implemented the systematic denial of approval for patients to exit Gaza and seek treatment elsewhere, including patients with gynaecological cancer. The Commission finds that the Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention.