A detailed study has established that Hamas and allied Palestinian terror groups systematically used rape and horrific forms of sexual violence during the October 7 massacre. A 290-page report released by an independent Israeli organization, The Civil Commission, found that “sexual violence was not incidental, it was deliberate, coordinated, and embedded in the attack itself.”
The sexual violence, “primarily targeting women, children and hostages,” began the moment Palestinian intruders invaded southern Israel on October 7, 2023, and continued throughout their captivity in Gaza. “Across homes, roads, shelters, the Nova music festival, military bases, and during captivity in Gaza, Hamas and its collaborators used sexual violence as a widespread and systematic tactic,” the commission found. “These were not isolated incidents. They followed recurring, organized patterns across multiple locations and phases of the attack, including during abduction, transfer, and prolonged captivity.”
The report, based on 430 testimonies and more than 10,000 photographs and video evidence, uncovered that rape and sexual assault were not only deployed to harm the victim, but as “instruments of psychological warfare” to “terrorize families, communities,” and the Israeli society at large.
The documented evidence and materials “are almost unbearable in their brutality,” the report acknowledged. “Women and girls, and, in many cases, men and boys, were subjected to rape, sexualized torture, mutilation, forced nudity, and desecration of bodies. Parents were murdered in front of their children; siblings assaulted in front of one another; victims stripped, violated, filmed, and displayed.”
The recurring forms of violence compiled by the commission include ‘rape and gang rape, sexual torture and mutilation, forced nudity, executions linked to sexual violence, postmortem sexual abuse, and sexual assaults carried out in the presence of family members.’
The filming of the crimes and their circulation was not incidental, but part of Hamas’s October 7 strategy, the report said:
The investigation also documents how perpetrators weaponized visibility and digital dissemination as part of the violence itself, including sexualized content. Armed groups recorded acts of abuse, humiliation, and killing, and circulated the footage through social media platforms and victims’ own digital accounts. In numerous cases, family members first learned of the fate of their loved ones through images or videos distributed by perpetrators. This deliberate use of digital media transformed acts of violence into instruments of psychological warfare directed not only at victims but also at families and society at large.
Hamas wanted Israelis and the world to see its depraved war crimes. Palestinian attackers recorded and proudly publicized their atrocities on social media. “They filmed everything. They wanted the world to see what they did to her,” Ricarda Louk, mother of 22-year-old Shani Louk, who was murdered and taken hostage to Gaza, said in her testimony.
The report, which comes a day after the Israeli parliament passed a law allowing public trials and the death penalty for the perpetrators of the October 7 attacks, classified Hamas’ atrocities as war crimes and acts of genocide:
Based on its investigation, the Civil Commission’s findings conclude that these crimes constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocidal acts under international law. Therefore,the report establishes a clear roadmap for the prosecution of the crimes committed on October 7th and during captivity. The report presents a clear evidentiary and legal foundation for the investigation and prosecution of those responsible.
The document, containing images of charred and bloodied crime scenes and faces of innocent victims, is a difficult read. The authors of the report themselves note that its “content may be emotionally distressing for readers, particularly survivors of violent crimes and atrocities,” while emphasizing the necessity “to honor and preserve their truths is both our responsibility and our source of strength.”
Though the accounts of Palestinian-Islamist atrocities of October 7 are painful to examine, they present an insight into the depraved psyche of the enemy Israel and the West faces. “Reading the document is particularly harrowing, reflecting the scale of the violence committed on October 7, when more than 1,200 people of all ages were killed and 251 hostages, both living and dead, were taken captive to Gaza,” the French newspaper Le Monde observes.
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