The Gush Etzion Regional Council in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has publicly admitted that ritualistic sexual abuse of children occurred within its communities, a confession that marks the first time a governing body in Israel's religious-Zionist settler sector has broken ranks with years of denial.
The extraordinary statement came on 27 May 2026 in direct response to a broadcast by Israeli public broadcaster Kan 11, whose investigative programme 'Zman Emet' aired accounts from five women, most of whom did not know each other, who described virtually identical patterns of multi-perpetrator ritualistic sexual abuse in the same geographic areas.
