After 15,000 rockets, UN official ‘didn’t know’ about missile bombardment of Israel

Reem Alsalem, the body’s expert on violence against women, does know how to blast Israel for committing “massacres” in Gaza.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls didn’t know that Hezbollah and Hamas have been firing rockets at Israel since October 7, she told Channel 13 in an interview Tuesday.

Reem Alsalem was blasting Israel for the reports she had heard of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and an unfolding genocide” in Gaza.

Interviewer Bar Shem-Ur immediately noted that “Israeli cities and Israeli schools are also being bombarded every single day.”

Alsalem hesitated, then asked, “Every single day?”

When Shem-Ur confirmed this fact, she said, “Well, if that is the case, I would recommend that you also send that information to the Special Procedures so that we can look at it.”

He responded, “Don’t you see all the reports? Don’t you see the missiles coming from the north by Hezbollah and from the south by Hamas?”

Alsalem shook her head and answered, “At this point I have not seen that, no.”

Hamas fired some 3,000 missiles and mortar shells indiscriminately over the border as a cover for its invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023 alone.

Since then, the terror organization has launched over 9,000 more, albeit with a sharp drop-off in recent weeks as the IDF steadily destroys its forces in Gaza.

Hezbollah began launching rockets and anti-tank missiles at Israeli communities from Lebanon immediately after Israel declared war on Hamas, in a show of support for its Islamist partners in Gaza.

The Iranian proxy has fired some 3,000 deadly projectiles in the last five months, killing several civilians and soldiers, wounding dozens, and causing an immense amount of damage to Israeli towns and villages.

The media, both in Israel and abroad, has reported on these attacks extensively.

Alsalem is known for her anti-Israel stance.

On the same day as her interview, a letter she signed along with six other UN officials was published that charged Israel with committing a “massacre” of Gazans last week when hundreds rushed a convoy of humanitarian aid trucks.

It took numbers straight from Hamas, saying that “Israeli troops fired on crowds of Palestinians gathered to collect flour… killing at least 112 people and injuring some 760.”

The IDF has said some soldiers shot at a separate group who were running at them, aiming at their legs but killing a few inadvertently. Dozens of Gazans, it said, died from being trampled by the crowds.

The letter also claimed without evidence that Israel has “opened fire on humanitarian aid convoys on several occasions.”

Alsalem also told Shem-Ur that she had not seen enough evidence of Hamas’ sexual brutality and systematic rapes of women and men on October 7 although her colleague, Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, had just come out with an official report confirming these crimes.

Last month, she co-authored with another vocal Israel critic, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, a report charging that the IDF sexually abused Palestinian women and girls.

When asked about it, the only source she would cite was Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a group chaired by Richard Falk, a highly biased anti-Israel conspiracy theorist.

The IDF has rejected the categoric indictment, and added that all credible accusations against individuals were investigated thoroughly.