Overview
- The 173-page assessment marks Amnesty’s first finding that the Oct. 7 mass killing of civilians amounted to the crime against humanity of extermination.
- Investigators say hostage-taking was explicitly planned by Hamas leadership, with detention, mistreatment, and the withholding of bodies continuing after the attack.
- Amnesty names Hamas and its Al-Qassam Brigades as chiefly responsible, with Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and some unaffiliated civilians to a lesser extent.
- The report catalogs crimes including murder, imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearance and sexual violence, while limited survivor access left the scope of sexual crimes inconclusive.
- The release comes as the ICC has withdrawn warrant applications for slain Hamas leaders, maintains active warrants for Israel’s Netanyahu and Gallant, and official figures record 1,221 killed and 251 taken hostage on Oct. 7, with nearly all hostages now returned except one body.