Amnesty International affirms: Hamas committed crimes against humanity on October 7

Amnesty International documented in the report how these militias, led by Hamas, killed around 1,200 people, of which 800 were civilians (including 36 children).

Among the dead were a majority Jewish Israeli, but also Bedouins with Israeli citizenship. Israel migrant workers and asylum seekers with foreign nationalities.

The attack, which began at 6:29 a.m. local time on October 7, 2023 and during which thousands of Palestinians infiltrated Israel, it also left 4,000 injured and hundreds of homes and civilian structures were destroyed.

The attackers took 251 hostages (in addition to four others who had already been held captive in Gaza for years). Only one of the captives, Israeli soldier (killed on October 7) Ran Gvili, remains in Gaza.

“Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups showed an aberrant disregard for human life. They deliberately and systematically attacked civilians in places such as their homes or a music festival with the obvious purpose of taking hostages, which constituted war crimes,” Callamard continues.

The organization points out that the Al Qasam militiamen, along with others from the Al Quds Brigades (armed arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad), the Al Aqsa Martyrs (former armed wing of the secular Fatah formation) and other armed groups “deliberately killed hundreds of civilians, even firing shots and throwing grenades to force terrified people, including families with small children, to leave their safe rooms and hiding places. or attacking them when they fled.”

In addition, Amnesty has documented evidence of sexual assault and desecration of bodies on the day of the attack.

The organization denies the claims of the authorities of Hamas who accuse Israeli army killing its own population. Although Amnesty supports that the Israeli military sometimes opened fire on its citizens, the majority of victims lost their lives at the hands of Gazan militias.

“Palestinian fighters, including Hamas forces, were also responsible for kidnapping civilians in numerous locations and subjecting captured individuals to physical, sexual and psychological abuse,” the organization warns.

To prepare the report, Amnesty International interviewed 70 people, including 17 survivors of October 7, 2023; visited the sites of the attacks and examined at least 350 videos and photographs of the day of the massacre and the captives in the enclave.

Based on this, it determined that Hamas and the militias committed the crimes against humanity of “murder”, “extermination”, “imprisonment or other serious deprivation of physical freedom in violation of fundamental norms of international law”, forced disappearance”, “torture”, “rape (…) or any other form of sexual violence of comparable severity” and “other inhuman acts.”

“The alarming record of rights violations committed by Israel against the Palestinian population including decades of illegal occupation, apartheid, and the persistent genocide of Gaza cannot justify these crimes at all. Nor does it exempt Palestinian armed groups from their obligations under international law,” Amnesty says in the statement.