Amnesty International research confirms that crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups during their attacks on October 7, 2023, and against those they seized and held hostage were part of a systematic and widespread assault against the civilian population and amount to crimes against humanity.
More than two years after the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, accounts of the atrocities committed by Palestinian armed groups on that day and their subsequent treatment of those held in captivity in Gaza are still emerging. Survivors of the attacks, including former hostages, as well as their families, continue to shed light on their own experiences, while calling for justice and redress.
Amnesty International’s report sets out how Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during their assault on southern Israel, and against hostages held in Gaza thereafter.
Amnesty International has documented how, in the early hours of October 7, 2023, Hamas forces and other Palestinian armed groups conducted a coordinated attack targeting mostly civilian locations.
Around 1,200 people were killed – more than 800 of them civilians, including 36 children. The victims were primarily Jewish Israelis, but also included Bedouin citizens of Israel, and scores of foreign national migrant workers, students and asylum seekers. More than 4,000 people were injured, and hundreds of homes and civilian structures were destroyed or rendered uninhabitable.
Through the analysis of the patterns of the attack, evidence and the specific content of communications between fighters during the attack, as well as statements by Hamas and leaders of other armed groups, Amnesty International found that these crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population. The report found that fighters were instructed to carry out attacks targeting civilians.
Amnesty International interviewed 70 people, including 17 people who survived the October 7, 2023, attacks, victims’ family members, forensic experts, medical professionals, lawyers, journalists and other investigators. Researchers visited some of the sites of the attacks and reviewed over 350 videos and photographs of scenes from the attacks and of people held in captivity in Gaza.
Amnesty International’s investigation found that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups committed the crimes against humanity of “murder,” “extermination,” “imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law,” “enforced disappearance,” “torture,” “rape… or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity,” and “other inhumane acts.”