Amnesty accuses Hamas of crimes against humanity on Oct. 7 and afterwards

Islamic Jihad and Hamas militants carry a white body bag that is believed to be the remains of a deceased hostage, in the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi).

Amnesty International on Thursday accused Hamas and its allies for the first time of crimes against humanity during and after their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, with the Palestinian militant group rejecting the report as “lies.”

The findings also drew criticism from Israel, which accused Amnesty of bias and of failing to give a full accounting of the crimes committed during the attack, which sparked the Gaza war.

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

Amnesty said the mass killing of civilians that day amounted “to the crime against humanity of extermination.”

Hamas condemned the report, saying it contained “inaccuracies and contradictions.”

“The report’s repetition of the lies and allegations promoted by the occupation (Israeli) government concerning rape, sexual violence, and the mistreatment of captives clearly demonstrates that the purpose of this report is incitement and distorting the image of the resistance,” the group said in a statement.

It called on Amnesty to retract the “flawed and unprofessional” document.

Israel, meanwhile, said the report failed to show the full extent of the attack.

“It took Amnesty International more than two years to address Hamas’s heinous crimes, and even now its report falls far short of reflecting the full scope of Hamas’s horrific atrocities,” foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein wrote on X, accusing the rights group of being a “biased organization.”

Amnesty has previously accused Israel of committing genocide in its retaliatory campaign in Gaza, an accusation Israel has vehemently denied.

The rights group said 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.”

“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.

Mass killing

Amnesty previously accused Hamas and other groups of committing war crimes, which are serious violations of international law against civilians and combatants during armed conflict.

Crimes against humanity can occur in peacetime and include torture, rape and discrimination, be it racial, ethnic, cultural, religious or gender-based. They involve “a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.”

The October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people. Militants also took 251 people hostage that day, including 44 who were dead.

Of the 207 hostages taken alive, 41 died or were killed in captivity. All have since been returned -- mostly under a series of ceasefire agreements -- except for the body of one Israeli officer.

Among the acts listed by Amnesty as crimes against humanity were murder, extermination, imprisonment, torture, enforced disappearance, rape and “other forms of sexual violence.”

For the latter crimes, Amnesty said it was unable to interview survivors except for one case, and therefore could not conclude the scope or scale of the sexual violence.

The report concluded Hamas and its armed wing were “chiefly responsible” for the crimes.

Hamas ally Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and “unaffiliated Palestinian civilians,” were responsible to a lesser extent.

Arrest warrants

In May 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) applied for arrest warrants for Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh, head of its armed wing Mohammed Deif, and its October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar, who was the group’s then chief in Gaza.

The ICC withdrew the applications after all three were killed later that year by Israel.

The court also issued a still-active arrest warrant for Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war.

In December 2024, Amnesty accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. It warned late last month Israel was “still committing genocide,” despite the current ceasefire.

When Amnesty first made the accusation, Israel strongly rejected it as “entirely false” and called the report “fabricated” and “based on lies.”

Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has killed at least 70,373 people, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.