People mark Israel's annual Memorial Day at the site of the Nova music festival where hundreds of revelers were killed and abducted in the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack near Kibbutz Reim in southern Israel on April 21.Ohad Zwigenberg/The Associated Press
Hamas militants used sexual violence as a “deliberate tactic” in their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, a new analysis has found.
The report, published Tuesday by the Israeli non-profit Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children, documents the attack and found that sexual violence was both widespread and systemic, though it does not provide the number of victims.
The commission said investigators uncovered 13 patterns of sexual and gender-based violence in multiple locations and that the perpetrators then “weaponized” digital content from the attack. “Armed groups recorded acts of abuse, humiliation, and killing, and circulated the footage through social media platforms and victims’ own digital accounts,” the report says.
Opinion: There’s a link between Canada’s treatment of Israel and why Canadian Jews feel unsafe
The patterns included rape, gang rape, other forms of sexual assault, sexual torture − including burning and mutilation − deliberate shooting in the head, face and genital area, killing after or during sexual and gender-based violence, postmortem sexual abuse, humiliation and desecration of bodies, the report reads.
It adds that, in several incidents, victims were sexually assaulted or humiliated in front of relatives; in one case, family members “were coerced into performing sexual acts on one another.”
Irwin Cotler, a former Canadian justice minister and the international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, which contributed to the report, wrote in the foreword that it is a “testament to those who endured the unendurable and to those who did not survive to tell their stories. It names the crime that the world tried to deny, minimizes no survivor, and centres justice for the victims.”
The war in Gaza began when Hamas launched the attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostage. Israel’s response continues to this day, with The Lancet medical journal estimating that between Oct. 7, 2023, and Jan. 5, 2025, some 75,200 people were killed in Gaza.
Marsha Lederman: Two states is the solution
Investigators conducted more than 430 interviews, meeting with survivors, witnesses, returned hostages, experts and family members over the course of more than two years. Researchers also undertook an open-source investigation, reviewing extensive documentation, including thousands of photos, as well as videos of the attack.
Hamas militants attacked the Nova music festival, and testimonies from the open-air concert include witness accounts of people screaming as they were being raped. A survivor testified that he was violently gang raped and tortured and heard others being sexually assaulted. People on rescue missions reported seeing naked and dismembered bodies.
Militants also attacked kibbutzim and small villages. The report said bodies recovered from attacks showed signs of sexual and gender-based violence and sexual torture. There are no known survivors of such violence from the attacks on the kibbutzim, apart from people who were taken hostage, and the report documents sexual violence inflicted on men and women who were held hostage in Gaza.
“Acts of sexual torture, humiliation, and coercion were used to dominate, punish, and dehumanize the hostages, often in the presence of others, amplifying their suffering and fear,” the report says.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the founder and chair of the Civil Commission and the lead author of the report, said the attacks were calculated and conducted with exceptional cruelty. She said that documenting what happened is a big part of accountability.
“Recognition is part of justice. Believing the victim is part of justice. We meet survivors and families of victims and returned hostages on a daily basis, and they keep going around the world trying to prove what happened to them and being questioned, and I think for them the first thing is believing.”
In depth: Settlers pushing for their dream of a ‘Greater Israel’
The Commission said its findings show that war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal acts under international law were committed. It made a number of recommendations, including that Israel and the international community investigate and prosecute these crimes. The report says it “establishes a clear roadmap for the prosecution of the crimes committed on October 7th and during captivity.”
Dr. Elkayam-Levy said she hopes the report is recognized in parliaments around the world and that the findings are adopted in a way that ensures victims won’t be questioned about what happened to them. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to justice and precedents around the world and how such crimes have been prosecuted. However, Dr. Elkayam-Levy says law is not enough.
“It is not strong enough to fight these dynamics and these crimes, and we have to find ways to do much more. I don’t have all the answers, I just hope that this is a small step towards trying to do better for our children.”