Amnesty International says for first time that Oct 7 massacres by Hamas amount to ‘crime against humanity’

Amnesty International, the non-governmental organization which bills itself as a human rights watchdog, accused the Hamas terror organization and other Palestinian terror groups of crimes against humanity during the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel. 

“Palestinian armed groups committed violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes, and crimes against humanity during their attacks in southern Israel that started on October 7, 2023,” the human rights agency said in a 173-page report. 

The report, titled Targeting Civilians: Murder, Hostage-Taking and Other Violations by Palestinian Armed Groups in Israel and Gaza, condemns Hamas, other Palestinian factions, and even unaffiliated Gazan civilians for crimes committed during the Oct. 7 massacres. 

“Amnesty International has found sufficient basis to conclude that many of the violations documented in this report that were carried out by members of Palestinian armed groups and unaffiliated civilians who joined the attack meet the contextual, material and mental elements required by Article 7 of the Rome Statute and therefore constitute crimes against humanity,” the report states in the section titled ‘Crimes Under International Law’.” 

While Amnesty had previously accused Hamas of war crimes, in its new report, released Thursday, it states that the killing of civilians during the Oct. 7 attacks,  amounted to “the crime against humanity of extermination.” 

Amnesty International, also identified the seizure and holding of hostages in captivity as part of the crimes against humanity. 

“The holding of hostages was done as part of an explicitly stated plan explained by the leadership of Hamas and of other Palestinian armed groups,” the report stated.

Amnesty said that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza “continued to commit violations and crimes under international law in their holding and mistreatment of hostages and the withholding of bodies seized”.

Amnesty also rejected claims by Hamas that its fighters were primarily targeting military objectives. After viewing “354 open-source videos and photographs of scenes from the 7 October 2023 attacks and of people held in captivity in Gaza,” as well as statements by representatives of Hamas and other Palestinian factions, and interviews from survivors of the October 7 attacks, the organization wrote: 

“Contrary to claims by Hamas leaders that their fighters only targeted military objectives, the overwhelming majority of those killed were civilians and most of the locations targeted were residential communities or other places in which civilians were gathered, namely two music festivals and a beach. In the attacks documented by Amnesty International, the victims were generally residents of the civilian communities targeted, including, in some cases, members of the local emergency response squads, or festival-goers.” 

In determining that crimes against humanity were committed, Amnesty pointed to the systematic nature of the crimes. 

“The attack directed against the civilian population was widespread,” it wrote. “In addition to being widespread, the attack was also systematic. Amnesty International’s research documented patterns of identical or comparable prohibited acts committed in a similar manner. Perpetrators repeatedly treated victims in a similar way across many locations.” 

This demonstrated that the Palestinian fighters were acting in a systematic way, indicating planning and intention to commit the acts. 

“Amnesty International’s findings indicate that, in many cases, perpetrators of inhumane acts knew that their conduct was part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population. In statements made on 7 October 2023 and its aftermath, Hamas leaders announced the attack and included civilian communities among the intended targets. Leaders of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups invited Palestinians across the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories) to join the attack and commit acts of violence, including at civilian locations, with limited instructions to refrain from killing or harming civilians (and with no apparent instruction to limit their violence to military targets).” 

“The organization’s findings strongly indicate that members of Palestinian armed groups, and, to a lesser extent, unaffiliated civilians committed the following inhumane acts as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against a civilian population: “murder”; “extermination”; “imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law”; “enforced disappearance”; “torture”; “rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity”; and “other inhumane acts,” the report concluded. 

Amnesty International has also accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian population of Gaza, accusing the Israeli military of a pattern of deliberately indiscriminate strikes on sites in Gaza. 

That report was countered by the organization NGO Monitor, which accused Amnesty of using selective evidence, and misconstruing statements by Israeli leaders or commanders. It noted that several of Amnesty’s claims were contradicted by verifiable actions, such as the Israeli entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, as well as IDF investigations into reported incidents of war crimes committed by its soldiers. 

The current report by Amnesty International marks the harshest condemnation of Hamas since the October 7 attacks and the resulting two-year Gaza War.