Penny Wong says she believes Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and abused Australian women after Gaza flotilla

‘Those allegations are terrible. They are horrific. The treatment is unacceptable. And I express my empathy to those women to whom that was done,’ foreign affairs minister Penny Wong said. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, says she believes the Australian women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted and beaten by Israeli soldiers after being detained as part of a humanitarian flotilla attempting to bring aid to Gaza.

Appearing at Senate estimates, Wong said the treatment of the Australian women was “unacceptable”, and the allegations they had subsequently made were “distressing”.