IDF Listed For Sexual Crimes By NATO

Soldiers running towards a medical vehicle during a military operation

The United Nations just placed the Israeli Defense Forces and Russian Armed Forces on the same sexual violence blacklist as Hamas and ISIS — and Israel responded by severing ties with the UN Secretary-General.

Story Snapshot

The UN’s annual conflict-related sexual violence report added Israeli forces for the first time and Russian forces in the same listing cycle.
The UN cited “credible information” and “verified cases” as the evidentiary threshold for both countries’ inclusion.
Israel rejected the designation and its ambassador publicly condemned the UN chief, with Israel subsequently cutting ties with Secretary-General António Guterres.
Documented conflict-related sexual violence cases more than doubled globally in 2025, underscoring how explosive the broader crisis has become.

What the UN Report Actually Says and Does

Each year, the UN Secretary-General publishes a report on conflict-related sexual violence — a formal category that covers rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, and abuse carried out in the context of armed conflict, including inside detention facilities. ^[9] The report names both state militaries and non-state armed groups when investigators find what they describe as a pattern of abuse supported by credible evidence. ^[10] This year’s report named the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and Russian Armed Forces for the first time in their respective cases. ^[2]

UN Special Representative Pramila Patten briefed reporters on the findings, stating that both Russia and Israel were listed on the basis of credible information and UN-verified cases. ^[6] For Russia, the report cited sexual violence committed against Ukrainian prisoners of war and civilians. ^[5] For Israel, the listing followed documented reports of abuse against Palestinian detainees held in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. ^[2] The report placed the IDF on the same list that includes Hamas and ISIS — a pairing that immediately ignited international reaction.

Israel’s Response Was Immediate and Severe

Israel’s ambassador to the UN did not accept the designation quietly. The ambassador publicly slammed the blacklisting, called the report politically motivated, and criticized Secretary-General Guterres by name. ^[3] Israel then took the extraordinary step of severing ties with Guterres altogether — a dramatic diplomatic rupture that signals just how seriously Jerusalem views this listing. That response alone tells you something: governments that shrug off UN criticism don’t cut ties with the Secretary-General.

The counter-argument from Israel and its supporters rests on a legitimate procedural challenge. The evidentiary standard of “credible information” is a defined but contestable threshold. Access to Israeli detention facilities by independent UN investigators has been limited, which means some of the underlying evidence is indirect or testimonial rather than forensically verified. That is a real methodological vulnerability, and critics of the report are right to raise it — though raising a procedural objection is not the same as disproving the underlying claims.

Russia’s Inclusion Carries Its Own Weight

Russia’s addition to the blacklist is separately significant. The UN confirmed this marks the first time Russian forces have been formally listed for conflict-related sexual violence in the Ukraine war. ^[5] Reporting from Ukrainian sources and international human rights monitors has documented allegations of rape and sexual abuse against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war since the 2022 invasion. The UN’s decision to formalize that documentation in the annual report represents a meaningful escalation in institutional accountability — even if enforcement mechanisms remain weak.

Israel has been added to a UN blacklist of countries that commit sexual violence in war zones

Secretary General António Guterres said UN has verified 31 cases of sexual violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians from Gaza and the occupied West Bank https://t.co/jL9uk81ibP

— Socialist Voice (@SocialistVoice) May 29, 2026

Globally, the picture is getting worse, not better. Conflict-related sexual violence cases more than doubled in 2025 compared to previous years, with Patten noting that violence was frequently accompanied by extreme physical abuse, including killings after rape and incidents of suicide among survivors. ^[8] The proportion of the world affected by armed conflict has risen 65 percent since 2021, and sexual violence tracks that expansion with grim consistency. ^[7]

Why the Blacklist Matters Even When Enforcement Doesn’t Follow

The UN blacklist carries no automatic legal penalty. No military commander gets arrested because their forces appear on it. What it does is create a formal, published record that shapes diplomatic relationships, arms transfer decisions, and international legal proceedings over time. Being named alongside Hamas and ISIS in a UN Secretary-General’s report is not a neutral event — it is a reputational and legal marker that governments, courts, and future historians will reference. Israel understands this, which is why the response was so sharp.

The deeper question the report forces is one that neither side wants to sit with: when detention facilities operate without independent oversight, and when wars are fought with restricted press access, the conditions for sexual violence and the conditions for false accusations are identical. That ambiguity does not exonerate anyone — it demands more transparency, not less. The UN blacklist, imperfect as its evidentiary process may be, is currently one of the few mechanisms that forces that conversation into the open.