Global rights group finds Hamas-led militants committed war crimes on Oct. 7

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Hamas-led armed groups committed numerous war crimes during the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that precipitated the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, according to a global human rights group report released Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch said the acts of the Palestinian fighters, who killed around 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 during the attack, met the international legal definition for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The group's report found that five different Palestinian armed groups, led by Hamas’ Qassam Brigades, engaged in war crimes and violated international law by killing, torturing, taking hostages, looting and committing crimes involving sexual and gender-based violence. The New York-based rights group said its researchers were unable to independently verify claims of sexual violence and rape but that they relied on a separate report by a special U.N. envoy who found “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas fighters committed sexual violence during the attack.

The 230-page HRW report focuses only on the Oct. 7 attacks and does not examine the actions taken by Hamas or Israel during the subsequent war in Gaza. More than 38,400 people have been killed in Israeli ground offensives and bombardments in Gaza since the war began, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count.