The United Nations (UN) has dismissed Israel’s allegations that it failed to properly verify whether Israel had taken measures to prevent conflict-related sexual violence before including it on its list of parties suspected of such abuses, saying it repeatedly requested evidence but received none.
The development comes just a day after Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, announced the UN’s decision in a statement on X, condemning the move as politically-motivated and “disconnected from facts and reality’.
Danon also alleged that UN officials did not visit Israel to conduct their own investigation into the claims before announcing the designation.
“Israel submitted evidence, documents, and detailed responses to every claim. We invited UN representatives to come to the field and examine things up close, and they, of course, chose not to do so,” Danon claimed.
However, Pramila Patten, the author of the report that initially added Israel to the list, said UN officials made several requests for the information, but Tel Aviv did not respond despite Secretary General Antonio Guterres last year warning that Israel could be added to the list.
"I never received an iota of information on measures taken by the government of Israel on implementation of the preventive measures," Patten said during a briefing at the UN's New York headquarters, according to Anadolu.
"I have made several requests in writing, and sometimes during meetings, for details about initial steps, including the issuance of orders of command information on access and information on accountability measures, but I did not get any response, any response on the substantive aspect of the preventive measures.”
After Guterres sent Israel a warning letter about its possible inclusion on the list in August last year, Danon reportedly responded by rejecting the potential designation, according to Patten.
In the following months, Israeli authorities are said to have submitted documents outlining laws and legal frameworks on detention, but according to Patten, the submissions did not demonstrate how the measures were implemented in practice.
"When information is provided on a handful of cases that had been investigated, that had gone through a preliminary investigation, but never reached even the level of a criminal investigation, because it was deemed that there was not sufficient evidence, or that there was a lack of cooperation," she said.
"There's nothing concrete on accountability in that submission.”
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