They did with me what they wanted. There were no limits.
The 300-page report analyzed over 10,000 photos and videos, identifying recurring operational patterns that demonstrate organized, premeditated crimes rather than isolated incidents. Documented cases include forced sexual acts between family members, post-mortem abuse, and assaults livestreamed to victims' relatives—termed 'kinicide' by researchers to describe violence targeting family bonds.
- Two-year investigation by Israeli civil commission analyzing over 10,000 photos and videos
- 300-page report documents systematic sexual violence including group rape, forced family acts, and livestreamed assaults
- Approximately 1,200 killed on October 7; about 250 taken hostage to Gaza
- Commission recommends international prosecution mechanisms and specialized Israeli courts for sexual crimes
A two-year Israeli investigation concludes sexual violence by Hamas militants during the October 7, 2023 attack was systematic and widespread, including group rapes, abuse of family members, and real-time transmission of assaults on social media.
Two years of investigation by an Israeli civil commission has produced what it describes as the most comprehensive accounting to date of sexual violence perpetrated during Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The 300-page report, released this week, concludes that the sexual abuse of women, men, and children was not incidental to the assault but rather systematic, widespread, and integral to it—a pattern that continued after militants took hostages back to Gaza.
The commission, founded by legal scholar and human rights advocate Cochav Elkayam-Levy, assembled roughly two dozen Israeli researchers and trauma experts alongside international collaborators to examine the attack's sexual violence component. They analyzed more than 10,000 photographs and video fragments, including footage recorded by the attackers themselves, cross-referenced satellite imagery, visited attack sites, and gathered firsthand testimony from survivors and witnesses. The work was painstaking and deliberate: geolocation specialists pinpointed where victims were assaulted by matching visual evidence to other corroborating material.
What emerged from this archive was evidence of organized, premeditated crimes following identifiable patterns across multiple locations and phases of the attack. The commission documented recurring forms of sexual violence: individual and group rape, sexual torture and mutilation, forced nudity, post-mortem sexual abuse, and assaults committed in the presence of family members. In at least one case, family members were forced to commit sexual acts against one another. The commission coined the term "kinicide"—violence targeting the family bond itself—to describe instances where perpetrators livestreamed photographs and videos of assaults to victims' relatives through social media.
The human testimony is stark. One male survivor, identified only as D, described being isolated at the Nova music festival, beaten so severely he lost control of his body, then gang-raped and tortured by multiple attackers. "They laughed, they were delighted, as if I were their sex doll," he recounted in the report, which notes he passed a polygraph test. "There were no limits. I was completely naked. They did with me what they wanted." In the background, he heard women being raped, screaming for help. Two young hostages, relatives of each other, were forced to perform sexual acts on one another during captivity in Gaza.
The commission does not provide a precise count of documented cases, acknowledging the extreme difficulty of quantification. Many victims were killed, making forensic determination impossible. Survivors and witnesses to sexual violence in conflict settings typically delay reporting or never report at all. Testimonies continue to emerge. Yet the scale of the October 7 attack itself—roughly 1,200 people killed in hours, about 250 taken hostage—overwhelmed Israeli security forces and complicated the collection of courtroom-admissible forensic evidence.
The report has drawn backing from international figures including Irwin Cotler, former Canadian justice minister and chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, and David Crane, founding chief prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone. Hamas has not publicly responded to the findings and has repeatedly denied that its militants engaged in sexual abuse, declining to comment on specific cases.
The commission recommends establishing international prosecution mechanisms and specialized courts within Israel for sexual crimes. Merav Israeli-Amarant, the commission's executive director, noted that sexual crimes are the easiest to deny—especially when most victims are dead and cannot testify. The report is now available to prosecutors. Yet the path to accountability remains uncertain, complicated by the broader conflict that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza according to health officials there, and by longstanding disputes over whether sexual violence allegations are being weaponized or suppressed depending on which side commits them.
Citas Notables
This analysis allows us to step back and see the horror in its full magnitude.— Cochav Elkayam-Levy, founder of the Civil Commission
Sexual crimes are the easiest to deny, especially when most victims are dead and cannot testify.— Merav Israeli-Amarant, executive director of the Civil Commission
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did it take two years to produce this report, and what made the investigation so difficult?
The sheer scale of the attack overwhelmed everything. Twelve hundred people killed in hours. Two hundred fifty taken hostage. Crime scenes destroyed or contaminated. Many victims dead, so no testimony possible. You're trying to document something that happened in chaos, across multiple locations, often with only video evidence left behind.
The term "kinicide"—violence targeting family bonds. That's a specific choice of language. What does it tell us about how the attackers operated?
It suggests this wasn't random brutality. Forcing family members to witness or participate in sexual violence against each other—that's calculated psychological destruction. Livestreaming it to relatives adds another layer. You're not just harming the victim; you're weaponizing the family itself.
The report says these were organized, premeditated crimes, not isolated incidents. How did they determine that?
By finding patterns. Same methods used at different locations. Same sequence of actions. When you see the same operational blueprint repeated across a dozen attack sites, you're looking at something planned, not spontaneous brutality.
Why hasn't Hamas responded substantively to any of this?
They've denied involvement from the start and haven't engaged with specific allegations. In a conflict this polarized, acknowledgment becomes politically impossible. But silence also means the victims have no one to hold accountable on that side.
What happens now? Does this report actually lead to prosecution?
That's the open question. The commission recommends international mechanisms and specialized courts. But most victims are dead. Survivors often can't or won't testify. And the broader conflict makes everything harder—every accusation gets filtered through the politics of the war itself.