Here’s what Pramila Patten’s UN report on Oct 7 sexual violence actually said

Over the past four months, a concerted propaganda campaign, mounted by the Israeli government and amplified across various Western media outlets, has accused Hamas of using rape as a weapon of war on October 7. Allegations that Hamas planned and carried out a systematic campaign of sexual violence (with acts ranging from the deeply grotesque to the outright fetishistic and bizarre) have been used to paint the Palestinian resistance as inhuman and to justify Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Recently, analysis demonstrating the fallacious nature of these claims — the fabrications, factual errors, and journalistic malpractice, the non-credible witness and first responder testimonies, the Israeli military affiliations of key sources, as well as the absence of any forensic evidence or video or photographic proof — has broken through into the mainstream.

On March 4, United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten issued a report based on a visit conducted from January 29 to February 14 to Israel and the occupied West Bank to “gather, analyze and verify allegations of conflict-related sexual violence reportedly committed during the brutal, Hamas-led terror attacks of 7 October 2023.” The report, which details the findings of Patten’s visit, has emerged at a crucial moment. At a time when Israel’s narrative that Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7 is crumbling, and the media outlets that spun this narrative are under fire, the report is being widely heralded as a vindication of both.

Our analysis shows that this is not true. The report does not, in fact, reach many of the conclusions for which it is being lauded in Western media, and several of its findings undermine the Israeli narrative. While we point these out, we note that the report contains severe limitations and pitfalls in credibility. It is important that we understand why the report cannot be trusted, as it has given new life to the cycle of mass rape propaganda that is being used to justify Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

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https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/heres-what-pramila-pattens-un-report-on-oct-7-sexual-violence-actually-said/