UN report confirms: Hamas is controlling Gaza with murder, torture and ‘fear-based’ rule

A UN report has confirmed what Israel and Palestinian activists have claimed for a long time: Hamas is brutally oppressing the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, enforcing its rule by instilling fear through public murder and torture of alleged criminals and dissidents.

The new report was presented to the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday by the “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.”

Its central conclusion is that Palestinians in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip are “subjected to severe violations of human rights law by all parties to the region’s conflict.” The report lists alleged abuses by Israeli settlers next to abuses committed by Hamas terrorists, suggesting an equality between the two groups.

It ultimately blames Israel even for Hamas’ brutality. “Hamas-affiliated forces have exploited the vacuum created by relentless Israeli attacks and widespread destruction of Gaza,” said Srinivasan Muralidhar, Chair of the Commission.

“What is alarmingly similar is the deliberate infliction of suffering on Palestinian civilians. While their origins and motivations differ, both [settlers and Hamas] operate within environments engineered by Israel,” he said.

The report also alleged that settler violence “functions as a means of implementing Israeli State policy, with both the State and violent settler groups working towards the same strategic objectives: entrenchment of Israeli settlements, annexation of Palestinian territory and displacement of Palestinians from their land.”

Despite the biased framing, the report details some of the abuses committed by Hamas against its own population.

Between 2024 and 2025, the commission listed 249 cases of extra-judicial executions and severe physical violence against civilians by Hamas-affiliated militants, which resulted in at least 108 deaths and 384 injuries. The incidents amount to war crimes of murder and torture, and abuses of international human rights and humanitarian law, it noted.

“These cases involved executions, kneecapping, bone-breaking with metal pipes or cement bricks and beatings, and were framed by the perpetrators as punishments for alleged collaboration with Israel, looting humanitarian aid, theft, drug-related offenses or affiliations with internal rivals,” the report said. 

Forces directly controlled by the Hamas organization were involved in at least 60 of the incidents, the report said, including public executions of eleven men. However, the group also exercises overarching control over the area, making it ultimately responsible for the abuses there.

The commission noted that Hamas’ military wing, its plain-clothes Sahm Unit, and the new Rad’a Force, which is meant to “suppress crime and target perceived collaborators and rival factions,” were the key units involved in the crackdowns. However, allied groups like the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Mujahidin Brigades were also involved.

“Private information about many of the victims’ identities was published online, including full names and addresses, a practice known as doxing, exposing victims and their families to the risk of further violence, stigma and social exclusion,” the report said.

“The Commission is gravely alarmed by the severity and public nature of Hamas’ punitive measures in Gaza, which inflict profound trauma on an already severely traumatized civilian population,” said Muralidhar.  

The report also confirmed long-standing Israeli claims that Hamas uses hospitals and schools, citing witnesses, including Doctors Without Borders, who said that the Sahm Unit beat and shot people in several hospitals.

It also noted the systematic public torture of children accused of crimes, and that “children were spectators in 27 publicly staged incidents of violent punishment. This exposure results in normalizing extreme violence, desensitizing children to it and sustaining a climate of fear.”