NRPLUS MEMBER ARTICLE {W} omen’s humanitarian organizations have been mum on Hamas’s extreme violence against Israel’s innocents, as the terrorist group rapes, abducts, and murders Jewish women and children.

So, where are the women? Where is that band of sisters that, when the ladies of the world need education, or gay marriage, or gender transition, always seems to respond?

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women prides itself on being the “global champion for gender equality.” Indeed, the organization has many times stood up for women. When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan after the United States’ botched withdrawal in 2021, UN Women asked Afghan women how to help gender equality in the region. Many of the resulting policies focused on generating women’s employment and income opportunity and expanding access to education, policies the Taliban takeover hindered or immediately squashed with its less-than-feminist regime. Jump-starting female-owned business initiatives might not have been the key to defeating Taliban oppression, but UN Women at least consulted Afghan women on the matter. And the organization was firm in its language: The situation in Afghanistan is a humanitarian crisis, an economic crisis, a mental-health crisis, a development crisis, and a women’s-rights crisis, it said in August.

“This systematic and planned assault on women’s rights is foundational to the Taliban’s vision of state and society and it must be named, defined, and proscribed in our global norms, so that we can respond appropriately,” UN Women said.

Good. Coming from an organization dedicated to women’s rights, condemnation of the Taliban’s repressive war against women and girls made sense. To help allow Afghan women “the right to live free and equal lives with dignity and respect” demanded UN Women’s “urgent attention.”

Directly after Hamas’s terrorist attack against Israel, National Review asked the organization if it would propose similar humanitarian initiatives in Israel. Reports from Hamas’s attack in Israel tell horrific stories of abducted children, slaughtered families, and raped women — if ever there was a time for women to support women, it would be now, as Hamas rips babies from their mothers and Israeli families pray that their abducted daughters are dead, not worse. The violence against Israeli women certainly seemed systematic and planned enough to rouse humanitarians. But the eventual response from UN Women tilted heavily to one side, and not that of the Israelis.

Five days after our initial and subsequent requests, the commission issued a statement “on the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory” — after Israel began its counter-attack.

“UN Women condemns the attacks on civilians in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories and is deeply alarmed by the devastating impact on civilians including women and girls,” the statement read. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza was dire before these hostilities and has now severely worsened. This exacts unjustifiable and specific costs on women and girls. The demand to immediately relocate 1.1 million people from northern Gaza, while the entire territory is under siege, is extremely dangerous. We reiterate the Secretary-General’s call today for unrestricted access for humanitarian actors into Gaza, including the United Nations, to provide aid to the most affected. This is essential to address the desperate, immediate needs of women and children, including to food, water, and protection. We also join in his call for the immediate release of hostages.”

The organization’s parting words: “UN Women has been supporting Palestinian women since 1997 to achieve their social, economic, and political rights. We remain present on the ground to provide support and assistance and will do so for as long as it takes.”

True to its statement, UN Women released a report on the “devastating impact of the crisis in Gaza on women and girls” on Friday. ​Following the “7 October attack by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing Israeli attacks on Gaza,” the commission said, it will work with the Women’s Peace and Humanitarian Fund to invest $10 million in “advancing the participation and leadership of women in planning and responding to humanitarian crises; and Enhancing the safety, security and mental health of women and girls and protecting their human rights.”

If UN Women does manage to funnel aid into Gaza, Hamas won’t prioritize giving medical supplies or fuel to pregnant women. The group murders, tortures, and rapes women in droves and exists far outside of a feminist framework. Humanitarians shouldn’t believe that terrorists who slaughter babies for sport would ever support women’s empowerment; and unrestricted access into Gaza isn’t a foolproof way to deliver aid to Palestinians, not with Hamas in charge.

UN Women is an independent entity that received $556.3 million from government partners and private donors in 2021. Over 98 percent of those donations were voluntary (contributions that U.N. member states can make in addition to their mandatory contributions to the U.N. budget). Since its establishment in 2010, the organization has been “mainly funded by government partners committed to making gender equality and women’s empowerment a global priority.” Sweden, Finland, Norway, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States are top contributors to UN Women, to help the organization drive “the global agenda for . . . women’s empowerment,” and the United States even increased its contribution in 2021. Notable private donors were the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, De Beers PLC, the BHP Billiton Foundation, American Eagle Outfitters, the Ford Foundation, Getty Images, Google Inc., Johnson & Johnson, L’Oréal, Mary Kay, Microsoft, and McKinsey & Company, though many more American corporations donated.

UN Women isn’t a pointless organization, with its million-dollar aid designations and power to speak on behalf of the international community of women. UN Women has decried woman-hating terrorist organizations before; for the first time, UN Women ousted from its Commission on the Status of Women the Islamic Republic of Iran last year. The “gender apartheid” state had no right to participate in a body that protects women’s rights, activists said.

But when it comes to Israel, the women apparently are empowered enough. UN Women posted a rather regal video of Nicole Kidman last year, telling the world to “play your role in ending violence against women.” The organization should listen to that advice.