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A new 250-page report compiled by Israel’s Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas accuses terrorists and Palestinian civilians who entered Israel during the October 7 attacks of carrying out systematic sexual violence, humiliation, and abuse against victims during the massacre and throughout captivity in Gaza.
The report, based on more than 10,000 documented items including videos, photographs, forensic findings and witness testimonies, was published this morning by Ynet.
According to the report, researchers identified 13 recurring patterns of sexual and gender-based violence, including rape, gang rape, forced stripping, sexual abuse in front of relatives, threats of forced marriage and public humiliation.
The commission said the sexual violence was part of a deliberate and repeated pattern intended to maximise fear, pain and degradation. Investigators said many of the assaults were filmed and distributed online by the perpetrators themselves.
The commission spent more than two years gathering evidence, including testimony from released hostages, rescue workers, pathologists and teams involved in identifying bodies at the Shura military base after the attack.
Researchers also created a secure digital archive to preserve evidence that had originally circulated on social media before being removed.
The report describes abuse during abductions to Gaza and inside captivity, including testimonies from hostages who said they were stripped, threatened with rape or sexually assaulted.
One male hostage, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, described being groped and kissed by a captor. Another testimony cited in the report said two family members were forced to perform sexual acts on one another.
The report also references previously publicised accounts from former hostages including Romi Gonen and Ofelia Roitman.
The project is both for historical documentation and future legal action, while also seeking formal international recognition that such crimes took place.
Last night, the Knesset plenum approved in second and third reading the bill to prosecute terrorists of the October 7 massacre.
The law, passed by a majority of 93 Knesset members, regulates the prosecution of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack and stipulates that the death penalty may be imposed for the most serious offenses.
The bill was submitted by the chairman of the Constitution Committee, MK Simcha Rotman, and MK Yulia Malinovsky.
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