Hamas terrorists carried out a systematic campaign of sexual violence during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and continued that abuse for months in Gaza tunnels and hideaways, a two-year investigation by an Israeli nonprofit has concluded. The findings, released Tuesday, describe forced sexual acts between family members, gang rape, genital mutilation, and other atrocities the commission says were designed to destroy families as social units.
The report by the Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children draws on more than 10,000 photos, nearly 2,000 hours of footage, and interviews with more than 430 witnesses. It identifies 13 distinct patterns of abuse and labels the conduct "kinocidal sexual violence", acts deliberately aimed at torturing and destroying the family as a cohesive social and emotional unit.
Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, the commission's founder and lead author, did not hold back about the investigation's conclusions.
"The report reveals that sexual violence was a deliberate strategy, carried out with exceptional cruelty. For two years, we have listened to survivors and witnesses, painstakingly examined the evidence, and confronted material that is often beyond comprehension."
The scale of the Oct. 7 massacre is by now well documented. Nearly 2,000 people were killed when Hamas swarmed across the border into Israel. More than 250 were dragged into the Gaza Strip as hostages. What this report adds is granular, harrowing detail about the sexual dimension of the attack, and the extent to which it continued long after the initial assault ended.
Raz Cohen, a survivor of the Nova music festival, told the commission what he said he witnessed that morning.
"The men pulled a woman from the vehicle... forcibly removed her clothing, and raped her... They repeatedly stabbed her, killing her... They continued to rape her after her death."
Another survivor, Darin Komarov, described the sounds that defined the day for those hiding nearby.
"You hear it. It's right next to you. You hear the screams. And then you hear silence."
Those two sentences carry more weight than any policy brief. They describe what it was like to be feet away from atrocities and powerless to intervene.
The commission's report states that much of the sexual violence occurred during massacres near the Gaza border. A separate investigation by the Dinah Project, reported by Fox News, cited evidence of sexual assaults at a minimum of six locations, including the Nova music festival, Route 232, the Nahal Oz military base, and the kibbutzim of Re'im, Nir Oz, and Kfar Aza. That report relied on first-hand testimony from 15 returned hostages, 17 eye and earwitnesses, and 27 first responders, along with forensic, visual, and audio evidence.
The broader conflict has continued to produce consequences on multiple fronts, including Israeli military strikes against figures accused of Hamas ties deep inside Gaza.
One of the report's central claims is that the sexual violence was not opportunistic or incidental. It was organized. The commission describes acts "weaponize the deepest human bonds to maximize pain and psychological devastation." Forced sexual contact between family members, the report states, was part of a deliberate effort to create multigenerational trauma.
The Dinah Project report reinforced that conclusion. Professor Ruth Halperin-Kaddari stated plainly: "Sexual violence was indeed used as a weapon of war by Hamas on October 7." The report's authors wrote that "Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon, as part of a genocidal scheme and with the goal of terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society."
Men, boys, and the elderly were also victims of rape and other sex crimes, the commission found. The report documented at least 15 separate sexual assaults, including at least four alleged gang rapes, as well as patterns of forced nudity and victims found partially or fully naked with their hands tied, the Washington Times reported.
The evidentiary challenges are immense. As the Dinah Project report acknowledged: "Most victims were permanently silenced, either murdered during or after the assaults or remain too traumatized to talk, creating unique evidentiary challenges."
The sexual abuse did not end on Oct. 7. The commission found that hostages held in hideaways and tunnels within Gaza's cities endured continued sexual harassment and assault, in some cases for months.
Agam Goldstein, a 17-year-old hostage who endured over a month of captivity before being released, described the grinding psychological toll of that confinement.
"It's these little things that break you. When you have no control over your body and no control over how to take care of your body."
Former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky, quoted in the Dinah Project findings, offered a blunt corrective to those who have questioned whether the atrocities occurred at all: "Today, almost two years later, people still ask if it really happened... So I tell you, yes. It happened. And it's still happening."
That last line deserves attention. While campus protesters and international bodies debated semantics, hostages remained in tunnels. While progressive activists marched through American cities with slogans that whitewashed Hamas, the evidence of what Hamas actually did was piling up in forensic files and survivor testimony.
The commission's findings do not stand alone. The United Nations said it found "reasonable grounds" to believe Hamas militants committed rape and other sexual violence during the attack, the Associated Press reported. The International Criminal Court prosecutor, Karim Khan, stated he had reason to believe Hamas leaders bore responsibility for rape and other sexual violence as crimes against humanity.
The commission itself, citing i24 News, concluded that Hamas's behavior constituted war crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide. The titled report, "Silenced No More," was based on more than 400 testimonies and nearly 2,000 hours of visual analysis, Newsmax reported.
The sheer volume of evidence is worth pausing on. Over 10,000 photographs. Nearly 2,000 hours of video. More than 430 witnesses. Thirteen documented patterns of abuse. This is not a contested allegation resting on a single source. It is a body of evidence assembled over two years by researchers who, in Elkayam-Levy's words, "confronted material that is often beyond comprehension."
The debate over U.S. support for Israel will continue in Washington. So will arguments over the conduct of the war in Gaza. But those debates should be conducted with clear eyes about what started this conflict and what kind of enemy Israel faces.
One of the most striking aspects of the Oct. 7 sexual violence is how long it took for major international institutions to acknowledge it. For weeks after the attack, prominent feminist organizations and human-rights groups said little or nothing. Some actively cast doubt on survivor accounts. The U.N.'s own findings of "reasonable grounds" came only after sustained pressure.
The commission's report describes the photo of Shani Louk, whose half-naked body was paraded by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, as one of the defining images of the attack. That image circulated worldwide within hours. And still, the institutional response was slow, hedging, and in some quarters openly hostile to the victims.
The extremism unleashed by the conflict has reached American soil as well. A firebombing attack on a pro-Israel vigil in Boulder resulted in a life sentence for the perpetrator, a reminder that the hatred Hamas cultivates does not stay confined to the Middle East.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled a desire to phase out American military aid over the next decade, a posture that reflects Israel's determination to chart its own course in the face of threats that the rest of the world has been slow to confront honestly.
The commission's report does not ask readers to take its word on faith. It points to the photos, the footage, the forensic material, and the testimony of hundreds of witnesses. It names the patterns. It describes the mechanisms. It quotes the survivors.
The question now is whether the international community, and the American left in particular, will treat this evidence with the seriousness it demands. For nearly two years, there has been a persistent effort in certain quarters to minimize, contextualize, or simply ignore what Hamas did to women, men, children, and families on Oct. 7 and in the months that followed.
That evasion has always been a moral failure. With this report, it becomes an evidentiary one as well. The record is now too deep, too detailed, and too thoroughly corroborated to dismiss.
When the screams stop and silence follows, someone has to speak for the victims. This report does. The question is who will listen, and who will keep looking away.
