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- UN representative urges witnesses, victims of Hamas sexual violence to step forward
UN representative urges witnesses, victims of Hamas sexual violence to step forward
'We owe you all more than solidarity,' UN rep. tells survivors, victims – 'We want to ensure that you have justice'
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![(L-R) First Lady Michal Herzog, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence Pramila Patten, and Preident Isaac Herzog](https://cdn.i24news.tv/uploads/8b/7c/f8/8f/b3/f6/41/5d/40/82/04/b1/6d/8c/b3/de/8b7cf88fb3f6415d408204b16d8cb3de.jpeg?width=1000)
Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence who is heading a delegation to Israel to investigate the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas in its attack on Israel last October 7, urged victims and witnesses to step forward on Monday as she met with President Isaac Herzog and his wife, First Lady Michal Herzog.
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"I have a message for survivors, I have a message for families of victims, and another message for witnesses: Please come forward, please break your silence because your silence will be the license of those perpetrators, and would be perpetrators, to continue to do these heinous crimes," Patten said, according to a press release by the President's office.
"There's no place in the 21st century battlefields for such crimes. My team and I, we are here to listen to you in all safety and confidentiality. I'm here for a week, I'm prepared to meet you in a safe and enabling environment and to listen to your stories, the world needs to know what really happened on 7th October. The stigma should not be on you. The stigma, the shame, is on the perpetrators. And you have to join us in shifting the stigma and the shame on the perpetrators.”
"The scenes we saw on 7th October continue to reverberate," Herzog said. "They must be told and must be investigated, and most of all, the victims must be cared for."
The UN team includes senior legal and medical experts who are in Israel after mounting testimonies of sexual violence perpetrated by the onslaught on October 7. Patten also met privately with First Lady Michal Herzog, who told her: “As a woman to a woman, I want to thank you very much for coming to Israel with an open heart and open mind to listen and to see, and to help the survivors.”
"I want to say that survivors and victims, we owe you all more than solidarity," Patten said. "We want to ensure that you have justice."
The probe comes after harsh criticism against the UN by Israel for not responding to the accustions of sexual violence. This also comes as Western countries are announcing a halt to funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the main aid organization for Palestinian refugees, for the role members of the agency played in the October 7 attack.
As part of the investigation, which will be presented to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the delegation will meet Hamas attack survivors and witnesses as well as the treatment personnel and the security forces responding to the attack.
"Sexual violence is one of the most heinous crimes with devastating consequences that echo across generations," Patten said, adding it is "used as a tactic of terrorism, as a tactic of war, is intended to destabilize, to instill fear, to humiliate, to dehumanize not only the victims, but also the families, the societies, the nation, or the perceived enemy."