Newly released data from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirms a notable increase in reports of sexual harassment and assault within its ranks over the 2025 calendar year, Israeli media outlets confirmed this Tuesday. The data, published by the Gender Affairs Advisor unit to the IDF Chief of Staff, records 2,420 formal complaints of sexual violence filed by service members in 2025, an increase of roughly 350 complaints compared to the year prior. Further breakdown of the figures, released by the unit that oversees female soldier welfare, shows that only 42 complaints have resulted in formal criminal indictments, while another 21 cases were resolved through internal military disciplinary measures. In more than 700 of the reported incidents, the IDF’s response was limited to what the institution labels “command-level discussions,” in which accused perpetrators receive only formal warnings or reprimands. Meirav Ben Ari, an opposition lawmaker from the centrist Yesh Atid party who called for a special hearing on the issue before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, described the newly published statistics as deeply alarming. Ben Ari stressed that the IDF is obligated to deploy every available resource to curb the prevalence of sexual violence within the ranks, prevent incidents wherever possible, and provide consistent, long-term support to survivors throughout their military service. IDF officials have pushed back on framing the rising complaint numbers as a sign of growing crisis, arguing instead that the steady upward trend in reports over the last decade reflects increasing trust among soldiers in the military’s reporting systems, and a growing willingness of survivors to come forward with their experiences. The military reiterated its long-stated policy of “zero tolerance” for all forms of abuse, and added that it remains committed to building and maintaining a safe service environment for all personnel. A safe environment, the IDF noted, is a foundational requirement for operational effectiveness, trust between command and troops, and the overall resilience of the fighting force. This release of official complaint data comes just one week after a high-ranking IDF officer was suspended from duty over allegations that he sexually assaulted a female soldier under his command, Israeli national newspaper Israel Hayom first reported. The outlet further confirmed that complaints of sexual violence within the military have risen steadily since October 2023, when the Gaza war began. Experts and officials cited by the paper link the increase to two key factors: growing public and institutional awareness of sexual harassment in the armed forces, and a dramatic surge in total troop numbers following the mass mobilization of hundreds of thousands of reserve soldiers after the outbreak of hostilities. The rising trend of sexual violence is not limited to the IDF, however. Data collected by the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel, a leading non-governmental organization working to combat sexual violence across the country, shows that incidents have been increasing across Israeli society for years. The organization recorded more than 16,000 requests for help in 2024, over 85 percent of which came from women. In 2023, the group’s crisis centers received more than 17,000 calls for support, marking a 26 percent jump compared to call volumes in 2018. While the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the parliamentary body tasked with overseeing military activity, held a formal debate on rising sexual violence within the IDF’s ranks last week, the committee did not address a separate set of explosive allegations: widespread claims of systemic sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees held by Israeli soldiers and security forces, which have been documented by multiple international and independent outlets. One week prior to the committee hearing, The New York Times published an in-depth investigation detailing what it described as systematic sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli security forces that began after October 2023. The publication sparked immediate outrage from Israeli officials, who have pushed back aggressively against the findings. Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have instructed government legal teams to file a defamation lawsuit against the American newspaper. Allegations of sexual violence against Palestinian people held in Israeli detention facilities since the start of the Gaza war have been widely verified and documented by multiple human rights organizations and independent media outlets, including the London-based Middle East Eye. In December 2024, two Palestinian detainees spoke to Middle East Eye on the record, describing being raped while held in Israeli detention. One detainee reported being raped by a military dog, while a second recounted that Israeli officers raped him with sharp objects while he was held blindfolded. A United Nations independent inquiry published last year went further, formally accusing Israel of using sexualized torture and rape as an official method of war, employed to destabilize, dominate, oppress, and destroy the Palestinian people.