The Hamas-Led Armed Groups' October 7, 2023 Assault on Israel
Extract: Human Rights Watch research found that Palestinian armed groups involved in the assault on Israel on October 7, 2023 committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law – also known as the laws of war – that amount to war crimes.
These include deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian objects; willful killing of persons in custody; cruel and other inhumane treatment; crimes relating to sexual and gender-based violence; hostage-taking; mutilation and despoiling (robbing) of bodies; use of human shields; and pillage and looting.
Human Rights Watch also found that Palestinian armed groups committed a widespread attack directed against a civilian population, according to the definition required for crimes against humanity. This is based on the numerous civilian sites targeted and on the planning that Human Rights Watch documented went into the crimes.
Human Rights Watch has further found that killing civilians and taking hostages were central aims of the planned attack, and not actions that occurred as an afterthought, or as a plan gone awry, or as isolated acts, for example solely by unaffiliated Palestinians from Gaza, and as such there is strong evidence of an organizational policy to commit multiple acts of crimes against humanity.
Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, an attack directed against a civilian population is defined as a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts of crimes against humanity, such as murder or unlawful imprisonment, pursuant to or in furtherance of a state or organizational policy to commit such an attack.
Human Rights Watch concludes that the murder of civilians and the taking of hostages – imprisonment in violation of fundamental rules of international law – on October 7, 2023, formed part of the attack and were crimes against humanity.
There should be further investigation of other potential crimes against humanity, including persecution against any identifiable group on racial, national, ethnic or religious grounds; rape or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity; and extermination.
These would amount to crimes against humanity if the acts amounting to these crimes were committed as part of the attack directed against a civilian population.
This report only covers the abuses committed on October 7; it does not examine the abuses committed during subsequent events including the treatment of hostages in Gaza.
