Ottawa to provide aid to Palestinian victims of sexual violence

Same pledge was made to Israeli women

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly pledged to fund support for Palestinian women following reports of sexual violence that have surfaced since the onset of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“We believe Palestinian women,” Joly posted on X Tuesday.

“Allegations (of) sexual and gender-based violence against them must be investigated and Palestinian women must be supported. Today, I announced in the West Bank that Canada will commit $1M to support this important work.”

The announcement comes one day after Joly made the same commitment to Israeli women seeking justice amid reports of Hamas militants committing sexual assault during its deadly Oct. 7 attacks. The minister also offered RCMP support to aid in investigations of the alleged crimes.

Joly’s office told the Star that the money promised in Tuesday’s announcement will go toward organizations supporting Palestinian women in Gaza and the West Bank. Those efforts, the minister’s office said, tend to include investigations into allegations of sexual violence.

The government would not say whether RCMP support would also be offered to assist with that work, nor would it elaborate on the perpetrators of the reported violence, only saying that the aid would help Palestinian survivors of sexual violence “no matter the circumstance.”

In response to the announcement, the National Council of Canadian Muslims said Ottawa “must continue to condemn all forms of violence, especially the cruelty of gender based violence, and call for justice to be served.”

Joly made both pledges during a weeklong visit to the Middle East, slated to conclude Wednesday. Over the course of the visit, the minister has continued to call for the release of all hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attacks and the urgent need to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

The Canadian government has faced consistent pressure to investigate Hamas’s reported use of sexual violence during the October attacks, which left 1,200 dead and around 250 people taken hostage. Israel’s retaliation for Hamas’s actions has resulted in the deaths of more than 30,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza.

On Monday, United Nations envoy on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, briefed the UN Security Council and said she had been made aware of reports of invasive body searches, unwanted touches, threats of rape and forced nudity in the occupied West Bank, which she said she has raised with Israeli authorities. UN experts have previously said there are “credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.”

Patten recently travelled to Israel and the West Bank — ongoing hostilities meant visiting Gaza was not possible — to collect information from survivors and witnesses of alleged crimes in the region. The UN said Patten and her team travelled to Ramallah “to hear the views and concerns of Palestinian officials and civil society representatives in response to allegations of conflictrelated sexual violence … in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, allegedly implicating Israeli security forces and settlers.”

Following her visit to Israel to probe the Hamas attacks and its aftermath, Patten found reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence had occurred in multiple locations on Oct. 7.

“In most of these incidents, victims first subjected to rape were then killed, and at least two incidents relate to the rape of women’s corpses,” a UN news release states.

Patten also found “clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, has been committed against hostages,” along with evidence that such violence may be ongoing for those who remain in captivity.