October 7 attacks

The October 7 attacks were coordinated assaults on southern Israel launched from the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups. Accompanied by rocket barrages, attackers breached the Gaza–Israel barrier and assaulted residential communities, music festivals, roads, and military installations. Approximately 1,200 people were killed, including civilians and security personnel, and 251 people were abducted into Gaza. The victims included Israelis and foreign nationals. (un.org)

The attacks precipitated the Gaza war and prompted investigations into both the perpetrators’ actions and failures of Israeli intelligence and defense. Investigations by the United Nations and human-rights organizations documented deliberate attacks on civilians and hostage-taking; their findings identified war crimes, while Human Rights Watch also identified crimes against humanity. The events are examined through their historical setting, preparation and execution, the experiences of victims and hostages, Israel’s immediate response, and subsequent investigations and international reactions. (un.org)

Historical and geographical setting

The Gaza Strip is a Mediterranean coastal territory bordering Israel to the north and east and Egypt to the southwest, geographically separated from the West Bank. Its approximately 365 square kilometres contained about 2.2 million Palestinians in the immediate pre-attack period. Across its perimeter lay the Israeli region commonly called the “Gaza Envelope”: Sderot and numerous smaller communities, including kibbutzim—cooperative rural settlements—such as Kfar Aza, Nahal Oz, Be’eri, and Nir Oz. Many stood only a few kilometres from the boundary. Route 232 linked communities and junctions along the Israeli side, while Ofakim lay farther inland to the east. This geography placed civilian homes, agricultural land, roads, and recreational sites close to military positions and crossing infrastructure. (ochaopt.org)

Israel’s perimeter defences combined fencing, surveillance equipment, patrol infrastructure, and an underground barrier intended to counter cross-border tunnels; work on the upgraded above- and below-ground barriers was completed in December 2021. Erez, at Gaza’s northern end, served authorized pedestrian movement into Israel, while Kerem Shalom was the principal commercial crossing. Rafah connected Gaza with Egypt. Israeli military installations included the Nahal Oz outpost beside the eastern perimeter and the Gaza Division headquarters near Re’im. Although this infrastructure formed a closely connected border-security system, the adjacent civilian communities remained legally distinct from military objectives. (idf.il)

In 2005, Israel implemented its unilateral disengagement from Gaza, evacuating its settlements and withdrawing its permanent ground forces. It nevertheless retained control over Gaza’s airspace, maritime access, and most land access, as well as important administrative mechanisms, including the population registry. The United Nations continued to regard Gaza as occupied territory after disengagement. In June 2007, following armed conflict with Fatah, Hamas took control of Gaza, establishing a separate administration from the Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank. Israel then substantially intensified existing movement restrictions, citing security concerns, through a land, sea, and air blockade. Egypt also restricted movement through Rafah. These measures limited which people and categories of goods could enter or leave and constrained employment, trade, and access to specialized medical care. (unispal.un.org)

Repeated hostilities followed, including major rounds in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021, involving Israeli military operations in Gaza and rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian armed groups against Israel. The immediate background also included fighting from May 9 to 13, 2023, after Israeli airstrikes killed senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad members and family members; Palestinian armed groups subsequently fired rockets toward Israel. An Egyptian-mediated ceasefire took effect on May 13. In September, demonstrations and violence along the perimeter coincided with renewed restrictions at Erez. Israel reopened the crossing to workers on September 28 after a closure lasting nearly two weeks; approximately 18,000 Gaza residents then held permits to work in Israel. These economic connections therefore coexisted with restrictions and recurring armed confrontation rather than unrestricted movement across the boundary. (hrw.org)

October 7, 2023, fell on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, and coincided in Israel with Simchat Torah; many Israeli soldiers were on holiday leave. Civilian activities included family gatherings and outdoor music events, among them the Nova festival near Re’im. The holiday calendar, border geography, previous hostilities, and movement regime form the setting of the attacks, not a justification for attacks on civilians. Under international humanitarian law, civilian protection does not depend on responsibility for a government’s policies: parties must distinguish civilians from combatants, and deliberate attacks on civilians and hostage-taking are prohibited. (hrw.org)

Organizers, participating groups, and preparation

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, planned and led the October 7 assault. Human Rights Watch’s July 2024 investigation confirmed the participation of four other armed groups: Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s National Resistance Brigades, also called the Omar al-Qasim Forces; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, formerly linked to Fatah. Its identification rested on verified recordings, organizational insignia, and material published through the groups’ own channels. These organizations belonged to Gaza’s Joint Operations Room, a framework for joint training, planning, and armed operations; membership alone, however, does not establish identical advance knowledge or responsibilities for October 7. (hrw.org)

Organized participants must be distinguished from people who crossed after the initial breaches. Human Rights Watch documented both armed-group members wearing civilian clothing and apparently unaffiliated people participating in abuses alongside fighters. Clothing therefore did not reliably establish organizational affiliation. In its April 14, 2024 response to the organization, Hamas acknowledged that the Qassam Brigades planned and led the operation but attributed some abuses to later, uncoordinated entrants. Human Rights Watch rejected this as an explanation for the overall pattern: its investigation found that organized fighters attacked civilians from the assault’s outset, rather than civilian targeting arising only through subsequent disorder. (hrw.org)

Mohammed Deif was the Qassam Brigades’ overall commander, while Yahya Sinwar headed Hamas in Gaza. Reuters’s October 2023 investigation, citing a source close to Hamas, attributed the decision to prepare the assault jointly to Deif and Sinwar, with Deif principally responsible for its design; an Israeli security source also attributed direct planning and operational involvement to Deif. These were attributed investigative findings, not a publicly disclosed record of every authorization. Reuters’s sources described knowledge as confined to a small leadership circle. Separately, the June 2024 United Nations Commission of Inquiry recorded Hamas official Ali Barakeh’s claim that only a few senior military commanders planned the operation. Such accounts do not establish what every political leader or allied organization knew beforehand. (uk.investing.com)

Preparation combined reconnaissance, specialist training, and intergroup exercises. The UN commission reported accounts of studying Israeli military practices and terrain, obtaining weapons, and training selected Nukhba personnel, Hamas’s elite forces. It also recorded spokesman Abu Obaida’s October 12, 2023 statement that the attack was first proposed in 2021. More directly observable evidence included Joint Operations Room photographs and videos: the commission identified four joint drills over three years, beginning with manoeuvres announced on December 29, 2020, and ending with a drill it dated September 13, 2023. These rehearsed infiltration, raids on mock compounds, and hostage-taking. The commission distinguished this evidence from purported captured maps and operational instructions, which it could not independently authenticate. (ecoi.net)

Hamas called the operation Tufan al-Aqsa, commonly translated as “Al-Aqsa Flood.” Deif announced it in a recorded message on October 7, invoking the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. He presented the assault as a response to Israeli actions against Palestinians, including raids, land confiscation, Gaza’s blockade, and the treatment of Palestinian prisoners, and said Hamas had demanded prisoners’ release. These were Hamas’s publicly stated rationales and objectives, rather than independently established explanations of the planners’ motivations. (uk.investing.com)

Opening assault and penetration of the border

At approximately 6:30 a.m. local time on October 7, 2023, Palestinian armed groups began firing heavy barrages of rockets and mortar shells from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, while rocket warnings also sounded in central Israel. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry identified this bombardment as the opening of the assault, under cover of which attackers entered by land, sea, and air. The rocket fire and border incursions overlapped rather than forming clearly separated phases. Residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch consistently recalled the initial sirens sending them into reinforced rooms or communal shelters; at several communities, gunfire followed within minutes. (un.org)

The ground assault penetrated the perimeter at multiple locations. Attackers breached sections of the barrier with explosives, while bulldozers broke through or enlarged openings; fighters crossed on foot, motorcycles, and pickup trucks. Human Rights Watch documented 13 breaches in the material it examined and attributed 10 to the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. These figures describe its documented sample, not necessarily every opening made that day. The penetration was therefore not confined to one crossing or a single column: separate groups entered at different points and moved toward military installations, roads, and civilian communities. (apnews.com)

Other attackers bypassed the land barrier using motorized paragliders or approached the Israeli coast by boat. Human Rights Watch recorded a Kfar Aza resident’s account of seeing three men descend into the kibbutz in what appeared to him to be parachutes, alongside testimony placing gunfire close to the initial sirens. The sea approach brought attackers toward the coastal area around Zikim. These parallel routes extended the opening assault beyond breaches in the fence; they should not, however, be understood as evidence that every landing or crossing occurred at precisely the same moment. (hrw.org)

Attacks on the perimeter’s surveillance and communications infrastructure accompanied the incursions. Video evidence showed drones dropping explosives onto observation installations, while cameras and communications equipment were attacked during the opening phase. Border observation posts also came under fire. Human Rights Watch concluded that the disruption and destruction of surveillance and communications equipment prevented Israeli forces from developing an accurate picture of the situation. The simultaneous appearance of attackers at border positions and inside communities compounded that loss of situational awareness: reports concerned numerous unfolding engagements rather than one readily identifiable breach. (apnews.com)

The reconstructed sequence consequently varies by locality. By around 7 a.m., verified footage showed attackers entering Sufa, while other recordings placed armed motorcyclists on Route 232. Civilian communities and military positions were being attacked in parallel, rather than only after a completed battle for the perimeter. Timings derived from survivors’ recollections remain approximate: Human Rights Watch recorded accounts of gunfire almost immediately after the sirens at some locations, but later recognition of infiltration elsewhere. A local witness’s first awareness of attackers therefore does not necessarily establish their arrival time, and the approximately 6:30 a.m. opening should not be treated as an exact timestamp for every crossing. (hrw.org)

Attacks on communities, festivals, and roads

At Be’eri, Hamas-led attackers entered residential areas, killed and abducted inhabitants, and set homes alight while residents sheltered inside. Human Rights Watch’s July 2024 investigation reported 97 civilian deaths in the kibbutz. Its interviews illustrated distinct experiences within the community: nurse Nirit Hunwald treated a wounded local security-team member in the dental clinic, while other residents remained trapped in their homes. Across the attacked communities, investigators documented arson both as destruction of property and as a means of forcing occupants out of shelters, after which some were shot or captured. These attacks on households occurred alongside fighting with local defenders and, subsequently, Israeli forces. (hrw.org)

At Kfar Aza, residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch recalled sirens followed almost immediately by gunfire around 6:30 a.m. on October 7, 2023. Iftach Yacobi described being wounded when attackers fired through his family’s safe-room door. Elsewhere in the kibbutz, a neighbor witnessed gunmen throwing grenades into Yahav Wiener’s house before it caught fire; Wiener was subsequently found dead. Abductions followed separate local sequences: three-year-old Avigail Idan escaped to the Brodutch family’s home after her parents were killed, but was later taken to Gaza with Hagar Brodutch and her children. (hrw.org)

Farther south, Nir Oz experienced killings, extensive abductions, burning, and looting. Human Rights Watch’s July 2024 account recorded at least 38 civilians killed and 75 people taken hostage. Verified security-camera footage showed armed fighters and apparently unarmed people entering during the morning. Survivor accounts also described families escaping burning homes through windows after remaining in their safe rooms. (hrw.org) Unlike communities occupied for much of the day, Nir Am and Sa’ad largely resisted occupation through their local security teams, according to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry. (un.org)

The attack on the Nova music festival near Re’im spread beyond the performance grounds into escape routes. Attendees recalled rocket fire around 6:30 a.m., followed by evacuation attempts and shootings. Survivor Dan Liebersohn described abandoning a traffic-jammed car and fleeing across fields under fire. (hrw.org) The UN commission documented attacks on festivalgoers at the venue, along Route 232, in roadside shelters, and in surrounding fields and orchards. Consequently, leaving the festival did not necessarily take attendees beyond the attack area. Gunmen positioned at road junctions ambushed escaping civilians as well as engaging arriving security personnel. (un.org)

Roads and public shelters became additional killing sites rather than merely routes between attacked communities. The UN commission investigated four shelters attacked with grenades and machine-gun fire, including shootings at people attempting to escape; it also identified use of a rocket-propelled grenade at a shelter near Re’im. In Sderot, the commission documented the killing of 13 civilians at a bus stop, eight of them older than 65. These street-level attacks were distinct from the simultaneous battle around the city’s police station. (digitallibrary.un.org)

Military engagements and the immediate Israeli response

Hamas-led forces attacked military installations alongside civilian communities on October 7, 2023. At the Erez crossing and adjacent Gaza liaison base, an Israeli military inquiry published on March 30, 2025, reconstructed an assault involving approximately 120 attackers in successive waves. Soldiers identified attackers at the crossing around 6:35 a.m.; the adjoining base was penetrated shortly before 7 a.m. Defenders fought in separated groups, while airstrikes impeded additional attackers. Nine soldiers were killed at the liaison base and three were abducted alive. The inquiry found insufficient defensive forces and preparation, fragmented command, and confusion that left some personnel sheltering inside after others withdrew. These engagements with military personnel were distinct from the concurrent attacks on civilians. (timesofisrael.com)

At the Nahal Oz outpost, infantry, tank crews, surveillance personnel, and other soldiers confronted repeated assaults. According to the military inquiry presented on March 3, 2025, approximately 215 attackers entered the base during three waves; 162 Israeli soldiers were present, including 90 who were armed. A counterattack led by Major Shilo Har-Even collapsed under fire, and several tanks were disabled. Soldiers continued defending shelters and the command centre while Israeli aircraft struck attackers nearby. Reinforcements reached the base around 1:30 p.m. The inquiry recorded 53 soldiers killed and ten abducted, and identified systemic failures in preparing the installation for a ground assault. (timesofisrael.com)

The Gaza Division headquarters at Re’im was penetrated but not captured in its entirety. An inquiry published on June 13, 2025, found that approximately 30 attackers entered the base while another 30 operated around its entrance junction. Soldiers defended the gate, accommodation buildings, and command facilities in largely uncoordinated actions, while division commander Brigadier General Avi Rosenfeld attempted to direct the wider response from the command centre. Shaldag reinforcements landed at 10:18 a.m.; additional special forces subsequently searched the installation, which was declared cleared at 7 p.m. Four soldiers were killed fighting inside. The inquiry found that treating Re’im as a rear-area facility had left it inadequately defended despite its proximity to Gaza. (timesofisrael.com)

Outside the bases, the initial response depended on police, local security teams, residents, and personnel who joined the fighting without their usual units. The Israel Defense Forces inquiry into Be’eri found that local defenders bore the principal burden until 1:30 p.m. Although some troops arrived earlier, incomplete situational awareness, contested roads, and inconsistent orders delayed their effective deployment. Some forces gathered at the entrance rather than immediately entering; a divisional command framework was established at 4:15 p.m. Operational control was restored overnight, with further fighting and searches continuing on October 8. In Sderot, police defended their station before a prolonged operation to dislodge the attackers; security forces regained it early on October 8. (idf.il)

Medical evacuation also relied on improvised arrangements under continuing fire. In an account published by Magen David Adom, paramedics Adam and Meitar established a treatment point at West Netivot Junction around 7:30 a.m., receiving wounded people arriving in private vehicles, including festival survivors. Casualties were assessed and treated there before evacuation by ambulances or onward travel; the paramedics subsequently helped transport severely injured patients to Soroka Hospital. Such roadside treatment supplemented rescue and evacuation from locations where fighting prevented immediate ambulance access. (mdais.org)

Published investigations attributed particular civilian deaths to Israeli fire, with differing degrees of certainty. On April 5, 2024, an air-force inquiry concluded that Efrat Katz was probably killed when a helicopter fired on a vehicle carrying both attackers and abductees from Nir Oz; it stated that the observation systems had not distinguished the hostages. On January 10, 2025, another military inquiry assessed that Tomer Eliaz-Arava was highly likely to have been mistakenly shot by Israeli soldiers after escaping his captors at Kibbutz Nahal Oz. It identified a reasonable possibility that Dikla Arava was also killed by Israeli fire directed at a vehicle carrying her abductors, while explicitly withholding certainty in both cases. These were case-specific findings, not a determination of an overall civilian death toll caused by Israeli fire. (m.www.idf.il)

Fatalities, injuries, and affected populations

Israeli authorities put the death toll from the Hamas-led assault at approximately 1,200 people, including civilians and security personnel. On November 10, 2023, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat announced a reduction from the earlier estimate of about 1,400. The revision occurred while authorities were still identifying severely damaged remains and reconciling reports of missing people; the early total was not a completed, individually verified register. Identification also changed individual cases from presumed abduction or disappearance to confirmed death. (marketscreener.com)

Published breakdowns differ in their dates, coverage, and classification rules. In July 2024, Human Rights Watch cited an Agence France-Presse compilation of 1,195 deaths stemming from the assault, explicitly including some subsequent hostage deaths in Gaza. That compilation classified 815 people as civilians, including 79 foreign nationals, at least 282 women, and 36 children. Its remaining 380 deaths comprised soldiers, police, and community-security or rapid-response personnel, rather than military personnel alone. Human Rights Watch noted that AFP excluded all these security categories from its civilian count, although police and local responders without a permanent combat role are normally civilians under international law. These statistical labels therefore do not constitute individual legal determinations of combatant status. (hrw.org)

Other authoritative reports used different demographic snapshots. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry’s May 2024 report recorded, from Israeli sources, at least 809 civilian deaths, 40 children killed, and 25 victims aged 80 or older. These figures should not be combined with AFP’s later breakdown as though they were components of one dataset. The demographic records establish that the dead included young children, working-age adults, and elderly residents, as well as foreign nationals; they do not support treating the entire approximately 1,200-person toll as either Israeli citizens or civilians. (un.org)

The immediate injury burden is more precisely described through time-bounded hospital records than through cumulative wartime totals. A 2024 study of Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba, citing Ministry of Health data, reported that 1,457 wounded people were evacuated to Israeli hospitals during the first day. Soroka itself received 673 casualties between 6:30 a.m. on October 7 and 7:00 a.m. on October 8, with arrivals peaking at 83 per hour. Gunshot wounds accounted for 288 cases and shrapnel injuries for 249. Continuing attacks made some roads inaccessible to ambulances, and patients arrived by private vehicle, ambulance, and helicopter, sometimes without prior medical treatment. Soroka separated treatment areas by injury severity, expanded its trauma-room capacity, and transferred stabilized patients to other hospitals. These figures describe the initial mass-casualty response, not injuries sustained throughout the subsequent war. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Disaster victim identification required matching recovered bodies and fragments with information collected before death. A 2024 forensic study described police reconciliation of fingerprints, DNA profiles, dental records, and clinical or radiological findings; relatives supplied personal items from which reference DNA could be obtained. Severe burning, fragmentation, and incomplete remains made visual recognition insufficient in many cases. Accounting consequently requires separate fields for the date of injury, date of death, identification date, and recovery location. A person who died later in hospital belongs to an attack-related mortality count but not necessarily to a count of deaths occurring on October 7; likewise, someone killed that day whose body was taken to Gaza must be distinguished from someone abducted alive who subsequently died in captivity. The July 2024 figure cited by Human Rights Watch expressly included later hostage deaths, illustrating why superficially similar totals are not interchangeable. (sciencedirect.com)

Abductions and the hostage crisis

Hamas-led armed groups took 251 people from Israel into Gaza on October 7, 2023, according to the count reported by Israeli authorities and Human Rights Watch. The United Nations Commission of Inquiry subsequently identified 226 civilians and 25 members of the Israeli security forces within that total, including 36 children, older adults, and foreign nationals. Captives included residents of border communities, Nova festival attendees, soldiers, and foreign agricultural workers. The administrative count included people abducted alive and people whose bodies were taken into Gaza after they were killed. It excluded four people already held there before October 7: two Israeli civilians who had entered Gaza in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014. (hrw.org)

Abductees were transported across the border in vehicles and on motorcycles, then held in locations that included houses and underground tunnels. Survivor accounts describe different experiences rather than a uniform system of confinement. Yocheved Lifshitz, aged 85 when abducted from Nir Oz, said after her October 23, 2023 release that she had been beaten during her transfer by motorcycle and subsequently made to walk through tunnels; she also described receiving medical attention during captivity. The Commission of Inquiry’s September 2024 report documented accounts of confinement, inadequate food, threats, physical abuse, and sexual and gender-based violence. It cited a medical study of seven released women and nineteen children that found consistently poor nutritional status. Such evidence concerned particular survivors and could not establish the conditions of every captive. (apnews.com)

Independent access remained a major limitation. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) repeatedly sought permission to visit hostages but was not granted access to them in captivity; its participation in handovers did not constitute monitoring of their detention conditions. A separate UN mission led by Pramila Patten reported in March 2024 that it had received “clear and convincing information” that hostages had experienced sexual violence, including rape and sexualized torture, and reasonable grounds to believe such violence might be continuing. These were the mission’s expressly differentiated evidentiary findings, not findings concerning every hostage or a judicial determination. (icrc.org)

Four women were released in October 2023 before the first negotiated mass release. During the November 24–30 pause, agreements mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States enabled the release of 105 hostages; Israel released 240 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Foreign-national releases included arrangements parallel to the principal Israeli–Hamas exchange. The ICRC acted as a neutral intermediary, receiving released captives and transferring them onward, rather than negotiating the exchange terms. Military operations provided another route out of captivity: on June 8, 2024, Israeli forces rescued Noa Argamani, Almog Meir Jan, Andrey Kozlov, and Shlomi Ziv from two locations in Nuseirat. The operation involved heavy fighting and substantial Palestinian casualties. (2021-2025.state.gov)

Further exchanges followed the ceasefire that began on January 19, 2025. During January and February, 28 living people abducted on October 7 were released, alongside the return of eight deceased hostages’ remains. Two additional living Israelis released under that agreement had been held since before October 7 and therefore did not belong to the 251-person cohort. On October 13, 2025, Hamas released the final 20 living hostages under another ceasefire agreement; the ICRC facilitated their transfer to Israeli authorities. The return of living captives and the identification and repatriation of bodies remained separate processes. (amnesty.org)

On January 26, 2026, Israel announced that it had recovered and identified the remains of police officer Ran Gvili, the last person from the October 7 cohort still held in Gaza. Gvili had been killed on October 7 and his body taken across the border. By January 27, the recorded outcomes for the original 251 were 166 returned alive and 85 confirmed dead, with no living captives or unrecovered remains from that cohort left in Gaza. The 85 deaths encompassed different circumstances, including people killed during the original attacks and those who died or were killed subsequently; the figure was not a count solely of deaths in captivity. (investing.com)

Documented violations and legal assessments

International humanitarian law binds state forces and non-state armed groups alike. Its rules of distinction prohibit attacks directed against civilians and civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate attacks. Civilians are protected against attack unless and for such time as they directly participate in hostilities; captured soldiers and others no longer participating in combat must also be treated humanely. Murder, torture, cruel treatment, sexual violence, and hostage-taking are prohibited. Hostage-taking involves detaining someone and threatening death, injury, or continued detention to compel a third party to act as a condition of release or safety; the prohibition also protects captured combatants. Violations by an opposing party do not suspend these obligations. (hrw.org)

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel operates under a Human Rights Council mandate to investigate alleged violations of humanitarian and human-rights law leading up to and since April 13, 2021. Its June 2024 findings applied a “reasonable grounds” evidentiary standard, rather than the standard required for a criminal conviction. The commission concluded that Hamas’s military wing and six other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes, including intentionally attacking civilians, murder or wilful killing, torture, inhuman or cruel treatment, destruction or seizure of property, outrages upon personal dignity, and hostage-taking, including of children. It also found that rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas’s military wing and Palestinian Islamic Jihad violated distinction and the prohibition on inherently indiscriminate weapons. These were investigative findings, not criminal judgments against individual defendants. (knowledgegateway.ohchr.org)

On July 17, 2024, Human Rights Watch published its 236-page investigation, “I Can’t Erase All the Blood from My Mind.” Drawing on interviews with 144 people, including 94 attack survivors, and analysis of more than 280 photographs and videos, it documented war crimes across numerous civilian attack sites. It additionally assessed the murder of civilians and their detention as hostages as crimes against humanity. That classification required more than establishing individual unlawful killings: Human Rights Watch found a widespread attack directed against a civilian population and strong evidence of an organizational policy. It concluded that killing civilians and taking hostages were central objectives of the planned assault, rather than isolated departures from it. The organization’s legal assessment was not a judicial determination; it called for further investigation of other possible crimes against humanity, including persecution, extermination, and sexual violence. (hrw.org)

Sexual violence was examined separately by a mission led by Pramila Patten, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, which visited from January 29 to February 14, 2024. Its March 4 report served her monitoring and reporting mandate, not a criminal investigation establishing individual responsibility. The mission found reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred at the Nova festival and its surroundings, Route 232, and Kibbutz Re’im. Separately, it reported clear and convincing information that some hostages experienced sexual violence, including rape and sexualized torture, during captivity. Despite outreach, the mission did not interview any survivor of sexual violence committed during the October 7 attacks themselves; it interviewed witnesses and other sources. (un.org)

The commission’s June investigation identified patterns indicative of sexual violence in several locations, primarily against women, but found no credible evidence that fighters had received orders to commit it. Human Rights Watch independently documented forced nudity and the non-consensual production and publication of sexualized images, while obtaining no verifiable interview evidence from survivors of or witnesses to rape during the assault. It could not establish the specific perpetrators’ identities or whether the sexual and gender-based crimes were planned. These differing findings reflect distinct mandates and evidentiary records: neither the overall scale of sexual violence nor command responsibility for particular incidents was established by those reports. (un.org)

Evidence, reconstruction, and Israeli security inquiries

Reconstruction has combined survivor interviews with emergency communications, security-camera and dashboard-camera footage, attackers’ recordings, photographs, and material circulated through social media. Human Rights Watch’s July 17, 2024 report drew on interviews with 144 people, including 94 survivors and witnesses, and verified more than 280 videos and photographs. Its researchers established locations by matching landmarks against satellite imagery and street-level photographs; where possible, they estimated recording times from sunlight and shadows. They did not assume that camera timestamps were correct. The report distinguished material it had “analyzed” from material it had “verified,” reserving the latter designation for recordings whose location, timeframe, and context had been established. This distinction separated apparently authentic images from evidence securely placed within a reconstructed sequence. (hrw.org)

The evidentiary record nevertheless remained incomplete. Human Rights Watch obtained permission to visit Be’eri on November 5, 2023, but not the other attack sites it requested. It also noted that armed groups and channels redistributing first responders’ footage selected what they published, leaving the extent of unpublished material unknown. The United Nations mission led by Pramila Patten identified additional obstacles: burned bodies, damaged crime scenes, deceased witnesses, and the priority given to recovering and burying remains reduced opportunities for forensic collection. These were distinct from restrictions on institutional access: the UN Commission of Inquiry reported that Israel prevented its investigators from entering Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. Consequently, investigations differed in their access to physical evidence, official records, and witnesses. (hrw.org)

Israeli military inquiries used operational records to reconstruct both local battles and command decisions. The Be’eri inquiry, published on July 11, 2024 and led by retired Major General Mickey Edelstein, collected security-force communications, residents’ communications with consent, video, observation records, and field reconstructions. It divided the kibbutz into four investigative areas and constructed separate timelines. Its findings connected reinforcement delays to preparation for limited infiltrations rather than simultaneous attacks at numerous locations, difficulty establishing a reliable operational picture, and fragmented command. Although the community’s emergency team had assembled an updated assessment during the morning, the military struggled to understand conditions inside Be’eri until the afternoon; the 99th Division established command and control there at approximately 4:15 p.m. (idf.il)

Broader findings released on February 27, 2025 identified an intelligence assessment that treated Hamas as deterred and more interested in governing Gaza than initiating war. According to the military’s account, this assumption also shaped interpretation of unusual activity during the preceding night, preventing warning indicators from producing an adequate response. The inquiries examined strategic assumptions, intelligence, overnight decision-making, and the deployment of forces after the assault began. In remarks published that day, Chief of the General Staff Herzi Halevi described the process as an exercise in institutional learning and explicitly acknowledged his responsibility as the military commander on October 7. Those statements were acknowledgments of command responsibility, not judicial findings of criminal liability. (apnews.com)

The quality of the military’s own reconstruction subsequently became an investigative subject. On November 10, 2025, the IDF published findings from a review led by retired Major General Sami Turgeman, commissioned by Halevi’s successor, Eyal Zamir. The team examined 25 inquiries and interviewed approximately 80 relevant officials. It found uneven quality: some inquiries were comprehensive, while others provided factual foundations without adequately identifying failures, or remained incomplete. It also identified insufficient examination of the handling of earlier intelligence and the attack plan known as “Jericho Wall.” Its remit covered IDF inquiries, not relations between military and political authorities or between separate security agencies. These internal operational reviews therefore differed in scope and institutional independence from external human-rights investigations, and neither category constituted a criminal trial. (idf.il)

International reactions and the onset of the Gaza war

On October 7, 2023, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned in the strongest terms the Hamas attacks on Israeli towns and population centres, called for the immediate release of abducted people, and urged protection of civilians. On October 9, he reiterated his condemnation and stated that Israel’s military response must comply with international humanitarian law. Addressing the Security Council on October 24, he again condemned Hamas’s killings and hostage-taking, demanded the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, and called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. He distinguished explanation from justification: Palestinian grievances could not justify the attacks, and the attacks could not justify collective punishment of Palestinians. He also emphasized that protecting civilians did not depend on which side of the conflict they belonged to. (un.org)

Several governments coupled condemnation with support for Israel. In a joint statement on October 9, US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned Hamas’s terrorism and pledged support for Israel’s efforts to defend itself. Their statement explicitly distinguished Hamas from the Palestinian people and supported equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians. On October 26, the European Council reiterated its condemnation, called for unconditional hostage release, and affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself subject to international law. It also called for humanitarian corridors and pauses to enable assistance to reach Gaza. (govinfo.gov)

The attacks precipitated the Gaza war, whose operations must be distinguished from the assault and fighting inside Israel. Israeli airstrikes on Gaza began on October 7 while Israeli forces were still fighting attackers in southern Israel. On October 8, the government announced authorization of a state of war under section 40 of Basic Law: The Government. On October 9, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced a complete siege of Gaza, restricting essential supplies, including food, fuel, water, and electricity. Sustained bombardment was followed by an expansion of Israeli ground operations on the night of October 27. These were subsequent phases of warfare, rather than components of the original Hamas-led attack. (apnews.com)

Foreign nationals among those killed, missing, and abducted made identification, consular assistance, and hostage negotiations immediate international priorities. At the October 24 Security Council meeting, France reported that 30 French nationals had died and nine remained missing; Britain also reported citizens among the hostages. Qatar mediated between Israel and Hamas, and two American hostages were released on October 20. The International Committee of the Red Cross facilitated their transfer as a neutral intermediary, a role distinct from negotiating the political terms of release. (un.org)

Humanitarian diplomacy focused on access through Rafah, the crossing between Gaza and Egypt. On October 21, an initial convoy of 20 trucks carrying food, water, and medical supplies entered Gaza. UN agencies described the shipment as a limited beginning, insufficient for the scale of civilian need. The UN humanitarian coordination office calculated that its volume amounted to approximately four per cent of Gaza’s average daily imports before the hostilities. Negotiating sustained deliveries, alongside securing hostage releases and protecting civilians during military operations, consequently became central to the diplomatic agenda in the war’s opening weeks. (ochaopt.org)