UN blacklists Israeli forces for sexual violence

On May 28, 2026, the United Nations officially added the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Prison Service, and Israeli police forces to its annual blacklist of parties credibly suspected of committing rape and sexual violence in conflict zones. The decision followed three years of documentation, obstruction, and engineered impunity, a period during which Israeli authorities blocked UN monitors from detention facilities while the verified body count climbed to 31.

The 31 victims, 14 men, 7 women, 9 boys, and 1 girl, represent what the UN explicitly states is an “indicative” figure, not a comprehensive count. Israel denied access to its detention settings, to Gaza, and to the network of facilities that B’Tselem has documented as “torture camps.” The blacklist is not the end of this story. It is the validation of what survivors have been saying for years.

Among them is a 35-year-old father abducted from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. He told Prism Reports: “I wished for death every moment. After they raped me, I was left alone in the same room, hands still cuffed to the bed, and without clothes for many hours. I could hear the soldiers outside speaking Hebrew and laughing.”

A 42-year-old woman from North Gaza, arrested during the forced displacement from Beit Lahia in late October 2024, reported forced removal of her hijab, exposure in freezing conditions, and sexual violence from the moment of her arrest. Sami Alsai, a Palestinian journalist released after 16 months in Israeli prisons between February 2024 and June 2025, described to the New York Times what was done to him: “They tried to stop it but the pain was too much. It started twisting and moving. That increased the pain while they were laughing and joking.”

The Sde Teiman detention camp has become the symbol of this machinery. In July 2024, CCTV captured guards at the facility inserting an object into the anus of a Palestinian detainee. The victim suffered severe rectal bleeding and swelling. Medical reports, video evidence, and detailed testimony all exist. Five reservists were initially indicted. They were not charged with rape. The charges were dropped entirely in March 2026 after top army prosecutors admitted leaking the footage and lying about it, not because the assault didn’t occur. The IDF’s Military Advocate General ruled that the accused soldiers’ fair trial rights were breached when footage of their crime was leaked to media. The assault is documented. The perpetrators walk free. This is not a bug in the system. It is the system.

In May 2026, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Dr. Alice Jill Edwards documented 52 incidents of torture or ill-treatment and 33 incidents of sexual torture against Palestinian detainees. Her conclusion was stark: torture has become “state doctrine” in Israel, making prisons instruments of domination and destruction.

The Global Sumud Flotilla activists seized by Israeli forces in May 2026 told similar stories. Silas Beaver and Megan Dominguez, two of four Californians kidnapped during the interception, were held at Ashdod detention centre. Australian activist Neve O’Conner said she was dragged, sexually assaulted, and beaten while in Israeli custody. At least 15 cases of sexual assault among the freed flotilla activists have been reported, including allegations of forcible penetration by a handgun.

Israel’s response to the blacklist was swift and predictable. Ambassador Danny Danon was informed by letter on Thursday. By Friday, Israel announced it would freeze cooperation with Secretary-General António Guterres’s office until his term expires on December 31, 2026. Danon’s statement was blunt: “Whoever puts Israel on the same list as Hamas has lost all moral authority.” The Israeli government has called the report “blood libel,” vowed to sue the New York Times over Nicholas Kristof’s May 11, 2026 piece citing survivor testimony, and declared the Secretary-General persona non grata since 2024.

But the numbers are not allegations. They are verified. The evidence is not disputed; it is simply blocked from international inspection. Israel claims it provided a “full legal and oversight framework” and held meetings with UN Special Representative Pramila Patten. It also blocked Patten from visiting, citing “technical issues and security situation,” the same security situation Israel itself created and maintains. The UN report notes that Israel “failed to comply with last year’s demands for accountability and transparency.”

The timing is instructive. The blacklist arrives two weeks after Kristof’s New York Times piece, one week after the Special Rapporteur on Torture’s report, and three months after the Sde Teiman charges were dropped. It arrives after a March 2025 UN report concluded Israel systematically uses sexual violence against Palestinians as a strategy of war to “dominate and destroy the Palestinian people.” It arrives after B’Tselem’s January 2026 report describing sexual violence against Palestinians held by Israel as occurring in a “network of torture camps.”

For Britain, the implications are concrete. UK arms exports to Israel continue. British policymakers have access to the same evidence the UN used, the Sde Teiman footage, the medical reports, the survivor testimonies, the Special Rapporteur’s findings. UK obligations under international law are not theoretical. The Sde Teiman case alone provides grounds for jurisdiction under the principle of universal jurisdiction for torture. If the government chooses not to act, that is a political decision with legal consequences.

The blacklist is not the end of accountability. It is the beginning of a question every government must now answer: what does it mean to verify 31 cases of sexual violence, document a torture apparatus, drop all charges against the perpetrators, and continue business as usual?