Lead Investigator of Hamas Sexual Crimes Confronts U.N. Over Failure to Stand With Victims
GENEVA, June 24, 2026 - Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, founder and chair of the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, confronted the UN Human Rights Council today, presenting findings from the Commission’s landmark report, Silenced No More, the most comprehensive evidentiary record to date of sexual crimes committed during the October 7 attacks and against hostages in captivity.
Addressing a UN panel on women’s rights, Dr. Elkayam-Levy challenged UN officials and international institutions that for nearly two years failed to adequately acknowledge, investigate, or condemn the systematic sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli women and girls.
Her appearance comes one day after UN Watch brought former Hamas hostage Ilana Gritzewsky to confront UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women Reem Alsalem. Speaking before the Council on Tuesday, Gritzewsky challenged Alsalem’s repeated dismissal and minimization of evidence of Hamas sexual crimes, declaring: “I am the living proof of sexual violence by Hamas.” Video of the clash has gone viral on social media.
“Yesterday, a survivor spoke. Today, the lead investigator presented the evidence,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch. “The question is no longer whether these crimes occurred. The evidence is overwhelming. The question now is whether the United Nations will finally apply the same standards of compassion, credibility, and accountability to Israeli victims that it demands for every other victim of sexual violence.”
The Civil Commission’s report documents 13 distinct patterns of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape, gang rape, sexual torture, mutilation, and crimes committed against hostages in captivity. Drawing on survivor testimony, witness accounts, forensic evidence, visual documentation, and expert analysis, the report represents the most extensive effort to date to document the sexual crimes of October 7.
UN Watch called on UN officials, including special rapporteurs and other mandate holders who denied, minimized, or cast doubt on the crimes, to publicly acknowledge the evidence and support accountability for the victims.
Today’s appearance by Dr. Elkayam-Levy is part of a broader UN Watch campaign to confront the United Nations with the voices and experiences of women who have suffered under terrorism, Islamist extremism, and repression.
On Friday, UN Watch will host an official Human Rights Council side event featuring Dr. Elkayam-Levy alongside Yazidi survivor Fawzia Amin Sido, Afghan-Iranian women’s rights activist Marzieh Hamidi, and anti-FGM campaigner Nimco Ali. Together, they will expose a recurring failure of the international system: while women are often the primary victims of extremism and conflict, their suffering is too often ignored, denied, or subordinated to politics.
Dr. Elkayam-Levy’s full remarks, as delivered to the Human Rights Council, on behalf of UN Watch:
Our Civil Commission’s report, Silenced No More, was recently presented to you.
Drawing on an extensive historical archive, we assembled the most comprehensive evidentiary record of the sexual crimes of October 7 and in captivity.
For two years, we immersed ourselves in testimonies of unimaginable violence.
We revealed 13 patterns of abuse - including rape, gang rape, sexual torture, and the deliberate mutilation of victims’ faces and genitalia.
Victims were filmed while being tortured.
Families were forced to see the suffering of their loved ones.
We had to coin a new legal term - kinocidal sexual violence - to describe the deliberate sexual torture of family members.
This terror was made for visibility. Women’s bodies became spectacles of war.
This was also a calculated strategy, repeated again and again.
The truth is that Hamas created a blueprint for others to follow, putting women at risk worldwide.
Finally, the question is no longer whether the crimes occurred. But what is the world do about it.
Speaking for so many Israeli women who care about women’s rights, we were heartbroken by your response.
Where is your compassion?
Will the UN rapporteurs who doubted or denied these crimes acknowledge the truth?
Israeli victims were not merely abandoned. They were singled out, dehumanized, delegitimized.
We are now left to face a world consumed by hatred, and with an international system that fuels it.
Will anything change?
We call upon you to recognize our findings. And let this be the beginning of change.
