Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, faced backlash after stating that no independent investigation found rape occurred during Hamas's October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Her November 14, 2025, post on X implied no such sexual violence took place, contradicting multiple reports and confessions. Israeli officials and others condemned the remarks as a denial of documented atrocities.
Reem Alsalem, born in Cairo, Egypt, and identifying as Jordanian, serves as the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls. On November 14, 2025, she posted on X: “No Palestinian applauded rape in Gaza. No independent investigation found that rape took place on the 7th of October.” The statement drew immediate criticism for appearing to deny sexual violence by Hamas during their October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.
Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, responded on November 15, 2025, calling for Alsalem's removal: “Any UN representative who denies Hamas rape must be removed from their post. Period. It is a stain on the UN’s reputation that Reem Alsalem... denies the sexual violence that took place on October 7. This is a moral disgrace, an insult to the victims and their families... Israel will not allow Hamas’ horrific crimes to be whitewashed. Antonio Guterres, your silence is complicity.”
Countering Alsalem's claim, several sources document evidence of rape. Confessions from captured Hamas members include a father from Gaza who admitted: “She was screaming, she was crying, I did what I did, I raped her. I threatened her with my gun to take her clothes off, I remember she was wearing jean shorts...” His son, Abdallah, added: “My father raped her, then I did and then my cousin did and then we left but my father killed the woman after we finished raping her... Before this woman, we had raped another girl as well, I killed two people, I raped two people, and I broke into five houses.” Another captured terrorist confessed on October 16, 2025: “She was afraid of me and said, ‘Help me.’ The devil took over me. I laid her down, started undressing her, and did what I did.”
In March 2024, a UN mission led by Pramila Patten, Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, found “substantial evidence” of rape and sexual abuse against victims, hostages, and survivors on October 7. Two weeks earlier, the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel (ARCCI) reported multiple rapes, noting: “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.”
Earlier, in December 2023, the Lieber Institute at West Point cited reports from The New York Times, The Guardian, AP News, and Physicians for Human Rights Israel detailing rapes, gang rapes, forced nudity, sexual mutilation, and gunshots to women's sexual organs and breasts. The Israel War Room labeled Alsalem a “Hamas propagandist” on November 16, 2025, pointing to UN, New York Times, and Israeli investigations confirming sexual violence. Alsalem claimed she was “deliberately misrepresented,” per a November 15, 2025, post by Hen Mazzig. This incident follows Alsalem's March 2024 denial of knowledge about Hamas and Hezbollah missile attacks on Israel.