Global human rights group concludes Hamas-led militants committed war crimes on October 7

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hamas-led armed groups committed numerous war crimes during the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, which ongoing war in the Gaza Stripsays a report published on Wednesday by a global human rights group.

Human Rights Watch said the actions of Palestinian fighters who killed about 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 in the attack met international definitions of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The group’s report found that five different Palestinian armed groups led by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades committed war crimes and violated international law by killing, torturing, taking hostages, looting and committing crimes that included sexual and gender-based violence. The New York-based human rights group said its researchers had not been able to independently verify the allegations of sexual violence and rape, but relied on a separate report by a UN special envoy who “reasonable reasons” found to believe that Hamas fighters committed sexual violence during the attack.

HRW’s 230-page report focuses only on the October 7 attacks and does not examine the actions of Hamas or Israel during the subsequent war in Gaza. Since the war began, more than 38,400 people have been killed in Israeli ground offensives and bombings in Gaza, according to Israeli intelligence. Ministry of HealthThe ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.

The militants committed a crime against humanity by launching a “large-scale attack against the civilian population,” said Belkis Wille, deputy director of HRW, who arrived in Israel days after Oct. 7 and spent a month investigating the attack with local staff. The researchers examined Palestinian attacks on 26 civilian sites in southern Israel, including kibbutzim, towns, two music festivals and a beach party, and spoke to nearly 100 survivors and 50 experts and first responders.

“The killing of civilians and the taking of hostages were central goals of the planned attack and not actions that came about after the fact, were a plan gone wrong or were carried out as isolated acts, for example by non-partisan Palestinians from Gaza,” said Wille.

After reviewing hundreds of photos and videos, researchers concluded that the majority of Palestinians involved in the attack belonged to armed groups and were not randomly selected civilians taking advantage of the open fence.

“This claim was made very early on. It was made by Hamas to distance its own fighters from human rights abuses, and it was made by Israel to justify attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip,” she said.

HRW saw footage of fighters – including those in civilian clothes without military insignia – communicating on walkie-talkies and taking orders from commanders. The team concluded that the fighters who committed the worst abuses, especially in the first hours of the attack, belonged to armed groups.

In a nine-page response to the HRW report, Hamas said the October 7 attack was planned and directed by the Qassam Brigades, not the Hamas political movement, and that fighters had been instructed not to attack civilians. HRW said it considered Hamas’ response to be “wrong” and that “the deliberate killing and hostage-taking of civilians was planned and highly coordinated.”

The organization called on Hamas to immediately release the approximately 120 hostages and hostage bodies still being held in Gaza and to call on all sides to abide by international law and agree to a ceasefire as quickly as possible.

Human Rights Watch has a strained relationship with Israel, which it has accused of violating international law on several occasions. In April, an HRW investigation found that an October Israeli strike in central Gaza that killed 106 Palestinians was a war crime because there was no identifiable military target. Israel says it tries not to harm civilians and blames Hamas for the deaths because the militants operate in densely populated residential areas. The group also accused Israel of violating international law by attacking residential buildings in Lebanon with white phosphorusa chemical munition. The Israeli military said it complied with international law regarding munitions and used white phosphorus as a smokescreen, not to attack civilians.

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