According to the HRW report, Hamas and other Palestinian rebel groups committed war crimes in the October 7 attack

July 17 (UPI) – Human Rights Watch released a new report on Wednesday detailing how Hamas, with the support of at least four other Palestinian armed groups, allegedly committed war crimes and other crimes against humanity against civilians during its deadly attack on Israel on October 7. The terror group denied the allegations against it.

Human Rights Watch research has found that the Hamas-led attack last year “was aimed at killing civilians and taking as many people hostage as possible,” Ida Sawyer, HRW’s crisis and conflict director, said in a statement. She added that the “atrocities” committed on October 7 “should spark a global call to action to end all abuses against civilians in Israel and Palestine.”

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The 236-page report concludes that the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas that has ruled the area since 2007 with the help of four armed and allied Palestinian groups, “committed numerous violations of the laws of war amounting to war crimes, including attacks on civilians and civilian objects, the intentional killing of people in custody, cruel and other inhumane treatment, crimes related to sexual and gender-based violence, hostage-taking, mutilation and desecration of corpses, the use of human shields, and looting and pillaging.”

The monitoring group said it interviewed 144 people from October 2023 to last month, including 94 Israelis and 79 foreigners who allegedly witnessed the October 7 attack, as well as families of the victims, rescue workers and medical experts, and analyzed more than 280 videos and photos shared with HRW on social media.

The HRW report claims that Palestinian fighters fleeing from attackers often shot civilians directly at close range, fired into shelters, fired rocket-propelled grenades at private homes, and set Israeli homes on fire.

“They took hundreds hostage to bring them to Gaza or simply killed them,” the report said.

It also stated that “further investigations into other potential crimes against humanity” were needed, such as rape or “other sexual violence of comparable gravity”.

In addition, Hamas also killed, wounded, or took hostage Israeli and Palestinian nationals and foreign workers, including those from China, the Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. In addition, at least one citizen from Cambodia, Canada, Eritrea, Germany, Mexico, Sudan, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom.

The report cites figures from the Paris-based international news agency Agence France-Presse, which puts the number of civilians killed at 815 of the 1,195 people killed on October 7. It also mentions that around 251 civilians and members of the security forces were taken hostage. As of July 1, 116 of them were still in captivity and 42 of them were dead.

The report called on governments with influence over Hamas to exert pressure to secure the release of all “civilian hostages.”

HRW also addressed Israel’s response to October 7 and the eventual suspension of basic services and humanitarian aid to the Gaza area, which HRW said amounted to “collective punishment” of the Palestinians – a war crime – and exacerbated “the impact of Israel’s more than 17-year illegal closure of the Gaza Strip and its crimes of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinians.”

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 37,900 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed between October 7 and July 1 as Israel intensified attacks on the war zone.

However, Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry has been criticized for “failing to distinguish between civilians and fighters and distorting casualty figures in its calculations,” The Jerusalem Post and BBC pointed out on Wednesday, while a right-wing Israeli group claimed that the new Human Rights Watch report was a tool of political manipulation and contained nothing new.

Following the publication of the HRW report, Hamas issued a statement condemning its contents and even demanding an apology.

“We reject the lies and blatant bias against the occupation (of Gaza by Israel) as well as the lack of professionalism and credibility in the Human Rights Watch report,” the terrorist syndicate said. “We demand its retraction and an apology.”

A handful of officials on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some members of his right-wing war cabinet, have since been charged with war crimes, charges both warring sides vehemently deny.

But these are by no means new allegations. The New York-based human rights organization Human Rights Watch had already accused Hamas of war crimes dating back to 2021 before the escalating attack on Israel last year. This has now led to numerous accusations of genocide and other crimes against humanity by both the Israeli military and Hamas.

Also in November, a month after the October Hamas attack, HRW called on Israel to stop attacking Gaza hospitals and also suggested that Israel be investigated for war crimes. This was followed in June last year by a separate HRW report accusing Israel of illegally using white phosphorus, an incendiary agent used in war, in Lebanon toward northern Israel.

Sawyer said in the report on Wednesday that atrocities “do not justify atrocities,” the report said.

“To break the endless cycle of abuses in Israel and Palestine, it is crucial to address the root causes and hold perpetrators of serious crimes to account,” she said. “This is in the interest of both Palestinians and Israelis.”