A Palestinian women's rights organisation has warned that 75 documented cases of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian women in Israeli custody amount to no more than one per cent of what is actually occurring on the ground.

The figure was compiled by theWomen's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC), a Ramallah-based feminist organisation that has spent more than two years gathering testimony from survivors across the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem. Reaching even that number required months of sustained trust-building inside communities where fear of military retaliation, social stigma, and threats from soldiers keep most survivors permanently silent.

The warning arrives alongside a wave of parallel reports from the United Nations, Israeli human rights groups and an international consortium funded by 13 European governments, all pointing to the same conclusion: sexualised violence against Palestinian women has become a systematic instrument of war.

Kifaya Khraim, WCLAC's advocacy unit manager, has documented reports from Palestinian women and girls who allege they were subjected to sexual assault, sexual torture and rape by Israeli soldiers. Speaking to the Irish Examiner in April 2026, Khraim said she believed documented cases represent a fraction of the true scale. 'This is maybe 1% of the cases,' she said. 'We had to do a lot of research in local communities just to earn the trust for people to tell us about these cases.'

"A couple was detained together. The husband was in the room while they sexually assaulted his wife.. threatening to rape her.."Kifaya Khraim from@WclacPalestineon the systematic sexual abuse & torture of Palestinians in Israeli jailspic.twitter.com/re2pyv7Kko

The accounts Khraim and her team gathered share a disturbing consistency across geographic locations and different branches of the Israeli military. According toPrism Reports, women arrested without charge under administrative detention describe being forced to strip, beaten repeatedly on their genitals, photographed naked, and then threatened with or subjected to rape. Some told WCLAC they were afraid to fall asleep in Israeli jails because they believed they would be assaulted in the night.

Checkpoint violence accounts for an additional cluster of cases. WCLAC documented five incidents in which soldiers exposed themselves to women or subjected them to invasive sexual contact as a condition of movement. A 14-year-old girl who crossed a checkpoint daily to reach school told WCLAC that soldiers 'pretended to be searching her' before groping her. According to Khraim, that girl stopped going to school entirely. Home invasions produced some of the most harrowing testimony: soldiers with large dogs forcing women to undress and walk naked in front of children and handcuffed male relatives.

Survivors who have attempted to speak publicly face further coercion. Khraim toldMiddle East Eyethat two named Israeli captains routinely phone women after their release. 'They keep calling these women on their phones regularly, asking them not to speak to the media and not to talk about their stories,' she said. One woman, identified by the pseudonym Khulood, spoke publicly about her detention but withheld the sexual assault she endured. A captain subsequently called her and warned: 'If you speak to the media again, we are taking you back.'

In March 2025, theUN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territorypublished a report concluding that sexual violence against Palestinian detainees was 'committed either under explicit orders or with implicit encouragement by Israel's top civilian and military leadership.' Forced public stripping, rape threats and sexual assault, the Commission found, 'comprise part of the Israeli Security Forces' standard operating procedures toward Palestinians.'

The report, spanning incidents since 7 October 2023, documented cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence that 'amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.' It described detention conditions across multiple facilities, temporary holding sites and transit points, concluding that 'Israeli detention is characterised by widespread and systematic abuse and sexual and gender-based violence.'

Source: International Business Times UK