At a UN session on sexual violence in conflict, Israel’s First Lady Michal Herzog praised the UN’s decision to add Hamas to its official blacklist of perpetrators of sexual atrocities, stressing that the terrorist group has weaponized rape as a tool of war since October 7.
UN Finally Acts on Hamas’ Crimes
During a special UN session on sexual violence in conflict, Israel’s First Lady Michal Herzog welcomed what she called a “long time coming” decision: the official blacklisting of Hamas as a perpetrator of sexual crimes in war.
Herzog, who has been at the forefront of global efforts to expose Hamas’s crimes, stressed that the evidence had been clear for months. In early 2024, UN Special Representative Pramila Patten reported that Hamas engaged in deliberate, premeditated, and systematic sexual violence on and since October 7.
“Rape as a Weapon of Terror”
“The world must understand: Hamas uses rape as a weapon,” Herzog declared.
“These atrocities — rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, sexual abuse in captivity — are not incidental. They are systematic tools of terror. If the international community fails to condemn them clearly, in both action and words, we risk normalizing these crimes and seeing them repeated in future conflicts.”
A Warning to the World
Herzog’s message was clear: the UN’s recognition is not only about justice for Israeli victims but also a global precedent. Allowing such crimes to go unpunished, she warned, would embolden other terrorist groups and regimes to adopt sexual violence as a battlefield strategy.
