While falsely claiming to have received “independent confirmation” of since-debunked assertions of mass rape by Hamas, the State Department’s spokesman said he “cannot independently verify” allegations by UN human rights experts that Israeli soldiers have sexually abused and systematically slaughtered Palestinian women and girls in the besieged Gaza Strip.
The US State Department has downplayed the findings of UN human rights experts who received “credible allegations” that Israeli soldiers have raped, tortured, and executed Palestinian women and girls amid their siege of Gaza.
US media has similarly overlooked the UN human rights report, focusing instead on yet another dubious report by the Israeli Association of Rape Crisis Centers alleging the deployment of “systematic sexual violence” by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
As The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal reported, the Israeli report was “short on new research, absent of hard evidence, and reliant instead on clips from factually-challenged articles by the same Western outlets promoting its publication.” Its publication was funded by US-based Israel lobby heavyweights involved in a public relations scheme to justify the ongoing siege of Gaza.
The UN’s Office of the High Commission on Human Rights reported receiving testimonies from Palestinian women and girls in Israeli custody of rape and being “subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers.”
The Grayzone has also gathered video testimony from 39-year-old Abier Mohammed Gheben, a Palestinian abducted in Gaza by Israelis during their ongoing siege. She described being subjected to torture, deprivation and humiliation during over 50 days in captivity. “We had to sleep for a night… out in the open” while “blinded and handcuffed,” she told The Grayzone, adding that her interrogator “would call women dogs.”
Asked by journalists about the UN report alleging Israeli sexual abuse of Palestinian female detainees, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told journalists that he “cannot independently verify the reports.”
*Heated exchange* about the State Department's double standard of UN experts' report on sexual violence of Palestinians women: "I have seen those allegations I can't independently confirm those reports"
"Did you ever have [independent] confirmation what Hamas allegedly did to… pic.twitter.com/d7phRxsFhf
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) February 20, 2024
Though he insisted the US “strongly [urges] Israel to thoroughly and transparently investigate credible allegations,” Miller stopped well short of the dramatic denunciations he reserves for Hamas. The State Department flack previously claimed without evidence that Hamas refuses to release female Israeli captives because “they don’t want these women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody.”
Miller’s latest pronouncement triggered intensive questioning by reporters in the press gallery, who seemed to pick up on the apparent double standard.
“You said you had no independent confirmation of what the UN experts found,” AP journalist Matt Lee noted, “but did you ever have confirmation of what Hamas allegedly did to Israeli women, girls?”
Miller replied that the US had, in fact, received “independent confirmation” of supposed sexual violence against Israelis by Hamas combatants, citing the findings of unspecified “Israeli medical experts.”
Moreover, “it is a well-accepted fact” that Palestinian militants sexually abused Israelis, the spokesman insisted, “because the investigations produced credible evidence that not just the US accepted, but countries around the world accepted.”
“We have no reason at all to doubt those reports,” Miller concluded.
Later in the the exchange, Miller appeared to dismiss the credentials of the UN experts, telling journalists that the US would not treat the allegations of rape by the Israeli military as confirmed until they’re examined by “a credible medical expert.”
“With respect to these new allegations, we want to see an investigation. And we will of course look at the investigation and make our judgments when that investigation has concluded,” Miller stated.
The UN experts’ findings, which are reportedly “based on accounts provided by Palestinian female detainees, as well as information obtained via human rights organizations,” have been almost universally ignored by the Western press. As of publication, less than half a dozen mainstream outlets had reported on the shocking allegations.
Given the US State Department’s role in fast-tracking weapons to Israel, it may have good reason to downplay credible allegations of the mass killing and abuse of Palestinian women in Gaza. While it may not have been accused directly, Foggy Bottom has been a willing accomplice to any and all of Israel’s crimes.
