Ilana Gritzewsky, who was held hostage in Gaza, criticised the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Reem Alsalem, on Tuesday for denying the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas during and after the terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

Beaten. Kidnapped. Raped. Tortured. Murdered.

That is what Hamas did to Israeli women.

Ignored by the UN and dismissed by the world, Former Hamas hostage Ilana Gritzewsky took the floor at the United Nations and delivered a powerful message: the world can no longer ignore the… pic.twitter.com/H9MrumucXB

— Embassy of Israel to the USA (@IsraelinUSA) June 23, 2026

The confrontation with Alsalem took place during a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, where Gritzewsky spoke on behalf of the NGO UN Watch, reports the Jerusalem Post. “Your report deals with violence against women. Why is Hamas not mentioned?” she asked.

“I myself was a victim of this violence,” testified Gritzewsky, who was in Kibbutz Nir Oz when the attack took place.

“I endured days filled with pain and terror in captivity, and even now the feeling of being powerless and violated still hangs in the air. I returned with a broken hip, a broken jaw and a shattered soul.”

“I stand here today—not as a report, not as a statistic,” said Gritzewsky. “I am a woman who survived. I am living proof of sexual violence committed by Hamas. When I and other Israeli women pleaded not to be raped, why were you silent?”

Even two years after the attack, the UN Special Rapporteur rejected the rape allegations:

In November 2025, Alsalem stated that “No independent investigation has concluded that rape occurred on 7 October”, despite a UN report describing in detail Hamas’ use of sexual violence during the 7 October massacre.

Alsalem appears to have a particular grievance against Israel:

In April, she reinforced her denial by stating that the allegations of widespread sexual violence against Israelis on 7 October were “disinformation” used to “justify the genocide of Palestinians”.

The term “genocide” means the systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group. The accusation of genocide against Palestinians is never accompanied by any attempt to substantiate it.