Reem Alsalem, the UN's Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, explained on Tuesday why she hadn’t condemned the constant rocket fire targeting millions of Israelis in northern and southern Israel.
The reason for her silence, Alsalem claimed, is that she has not seen any reports of rockets being fired at Israel.
The UN official made the comments during an interview Channel 13 News’ reporter Bar Shem-Ur.
When Shem-Ur pointed out to Alsalem that Israeli cities and Israeli schools are being targeted with rockets every single day, she replied, “If that is the case, I would recommend that you send that information to the special procedures so that we can look into it.”
Shem-Ur then asked her if she had not seen the reports about missiles being fired by Hezbollah towards northern Israel and by Hamas towards the south.
“At this point, I have not seen that. No,” replied Alsalem.
The interview with Alsalem took place on the same day in which she signed a joint letter with six other UN officials condemning Israel for the trampling incident that occurred when a humanitarian aid convoy was swarmed in northern Gaza last week.
The IDF investigation into the incident found that while troops did fire at some Gazans who approached and threatened them, only ten people were struck by IDF fire. The majority of the casualties were the result of people being trampled during the crush or by being struck by the aid trucks as they attempted to escape from the mob.
The officials further claimed that "Israel has also opened fire on humanitarian aid convoys on several occasions, despite the fact that the convoys shared their coordinates with Israel.”
The officials called for a "permanent ceasefire" and "for an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel, as part of all States’ duty to ensure respect for human rights and stop violations of international humanitarian law by Israel."
The document did not mention the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza or call for their release. The only mention of Hamas was during a mention of negotiations between Israel and the terrorist organization.
The document also did not mention the UN report published just on Monday about the mass rape committed by Hamas terrorists on October 7.