The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said a report by UN experts exposing genocidal acts and sexual violence by the Israeli government in Gaza should be a “wakeup call for the international community.”
The Geneva-based Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory said in a new report that Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s healthcare facilities during the conflict in Gaza and used sexual violence as a war strategy.
“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” the report said. The report also accused Israeli forces of using forced public stripping and sexual assault as part of their standard operating procedures to punish Palestinians.
SEE: UN experts accuse Israel of genocidal acts and sexual violence in Gaza
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said:
“The heinous acts committed by the genocidal Israeli government in Gaza call to mind some of history’s darkest chapters. This report should be a wakeup call for the international community and our own government, which enables Israel’s genocide. A government that attacks pregnant women and uses sexual assault as a weapon of war cannot be given a place in the community of nations. Those responsible for these atrocities must be held to account for their crimes against humanity.”
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com