A new report by the Palestinian Feminist Collective, supported by the Progressive International, documents Israel’s systematic use of sexualized and gendered violence against Palestinians, across detention centres, homes, military operations, and systems of surveillance, from the Nakba of 1948 to the present.

The report shows that this violence is not incidental.

It is a systemic and historical mechanism of settler-colonial rule.

Enter your email to access the full report:

Core Findings

Sexualized violence, including rape and sexual enslavement, has been used by Zionist militias during the 1948 Nakba and later by the Israeli state as a method of displacement and domination over Palestinians. After 1967, such violence intensified against prisoners and detainees, laying the groundwork for the systematic sexual torture documented since October 2023.

Since October 2023, sexualized violence against Palestinians of all ages and genders has been documented across multiple sites of Israeli control. Noteworthy is the preponderance of attacks targeting Palestinian men, particularly their sexual and reproductive organs. This finding unsettles conventional understandings of patriarchal violence, and expands awareness of gendered violence as a central element of the settler colonial architecture.

Sexualized and gendered violence, before and after 2023, is kneaded into the logics of the settler state and architecture of the Occupation. Patterns of sexualized violence by the IOF include: sexual humiliation, sexual torture and rape, the normalization of rape rhetoric and public incitement, and the use of sexual coercion and blackmail.

The Israeli state’s practices of sexualized violence presented in this report constitute a historical pattern, derived and coordinated through settler and settlement structures, state institutions, their policies, laws, officials and forces, all with the majority support of the general public. An example, the training of dogs to rape Palestinians is an essential indicator of Israel’s opperationalized intent to dominate and destroy Palestinian life, and the Palestinian right and will to resist.

Contact for movements, press inquiries and interviews: For further information, press inquiries and interviews, please contact.

Share assets: Click here to download our resource pack and spread the word about this report.