Major news organizations, most prominently the New York Times, have promoted the idea of systematic sexual violence at opportune moments to justify Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. The first major salacious headlines and assertions emerged in late 2023, when Israel was campaigning to restart its killing during a brief ceasefire. The latest effort to revive this narrative follows the same pattern as its predecessors—and, indeed, is more overtly political, with the report spending less airtime on the well-being of women than on reasons we should roll back what is left of international law.

The UN, however, has stated multiple times that it does not have evidence of systematic sexual abuse by Hamas or any other militant group on October 7, 2023. A top United Nations official issued a statement last week that stands in direct contradiction to the new Israeli report.

Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, affirmed in her statement this week that though the UN had not found “systematic” sexual violence: "It is my understanding that neither the Commission nor any other independent human rights mechanism established that sexual or gender-based violence was committed against Israelis on or since the 7th of October as a systematic tool of war or as a tool of genocide," Alsalem wrote in the statement, first reported by NBC News.

In a move that is highly unusual, the Dinah Project report is now hosted on the UN’s website among its own reports on sexual violence and global conflict. Drop Site News asked Patten why she was hosting the report, but she did not respond. The UN fact-finding mission led by Patten and so dearly held by the Dinah Project, at times, directly contradicts what the Dinah Project argues.