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Jewish Leaders Call for Removal of UN Official Who Denied Oct. 7 Rapes
(JTA) Grace Gilson - Over 300 Jewish leaders, including women's rights advocates and rabbis, urged UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday to remove Reem Alsalem, the UN rapporteur on violence against women and girls, for denying that rape occurred during Hamas's Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The group cited two UN reports from March 2024 and July 2025 that concluded that there was "reasonable grounds" to believe that sexual violence had taken place during the attacks "in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape." "It's outrageous that deniers such as Reem Alsalem are aiding and abetting the sexual violence by claiming it never happened. These apologists should be ashamed of themselves," said Amy Elman, a professor at Kalamazoo College who helped organize the petition. Rafael Medoff, the director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, said, "If a UN official made such a remark concerning rape victims from any other ethnic or religious group, there would be an international uproar."