The Civil Commission for Documenting Hamas Crimes has presented a new report on sexual and gender-based violence committed during the attack on October 7, 2023, and during the hostage-taking period in the Gaza Strip. The publication https://www.civilc.org/home-heb/silenced-no-more-heb appeared against the backdrop of another important decision: the Knesset approved a law to create a special military tribunal for participants in the massacre of October 7.
The law was passed by the Knesset late on Monday, May 11, 2026, and international agencies reported on it on May 12. The tribunal is to operate in Jerusalem. The Civil Commission’s report was published in 2026; English and Israeli publications about it were released on May 12, 2026. The main crime scenes mentioned in the materials are the Nova festival near Re’im, Route 232, kibbutzim and communities in southern Israel, military bases, the route of kidnapping people to Gaza, and hostage detention sites in the Gaza Strip.
Commission report: not isolated episodes, but a recurring system of violence
The new document from the Civil Commission describes sexual and gender-based violence as part of the attack by Hamas and its associates on October 7, 2023, as well as an element of the treatment of some hostages after being kidnapped to Gaza.
The commission claims that this was not a series of random crimes amid chaos, but a recurring practice applied in different places and at different stages of the attack. The published description of the report speaks of more than two years of independent work, comparing testimonies, photos, videos, official documents, and other materials.
According to the commission, its archive includes more than 10,000 photos and videos, over 1,800 hours of viewing and analyzing visual materials, as well as more than 430 interviews, testimonies, and meetings with survivors, former hostages, experts, relatives of victims, and eyewitnesses. It is specifically noted that the materials were tied to the time and geography of the events, and the victims held citizenship of 52 countries.
For Israel, this is not only an internal trauma. It is an international matter because October 7 affected citizens of different countries, families, Jewish communities, people who came to the music festival, lived in kibbutzim, or served in the south of the country.
13 models of crimes
The commission identified 13 recurring models of sexual and gender-based violence.
Among them are rapes and gang rapes, sexual torture, deliberate shots to the face and genitals, murders during or after sexual violence, desecration of bodies, forced nudity, tying and shackling victims, public humiliation of women and children, kidnapping of mothers and children, violence near relatives, filming and distributing materials on social networks, threats of forced marriage, as well as sexual violence against boys and men.
These formulations are heavy, but they cannot be cleansed from public discourse. When it comes to crimes of such magnitude, euphemisms work against the victims: they erase the meaning of what happened and turn specific actions into abstract ‘cruelty.’
According to the commission, sexual and gender-based violence was used as a tactic of terror — to humiliate, intimidate, destroy families, and pressure entire communities. In this sense, the report is important not only as a description of the past but also as an attempt to create an evidentiary base for future legal proceedings.
Digital terror: why videos became part of the attack
One of the key sections of the report is devoted to so-called digital terror. The commission writes that terrorists filmed murders, torture, kidnappings, arson, humiliations, and desecrations of bodies, and then distributed these materials through social networks, including the victims’ own accounts.
This is especially important for the Israeli audience because many families on October 7 first learned about the fate of their loved ones not from official structures, but from recordings published by the terrorists themselves. Such a mechanism turned the crime into an ongoing psychological attack.
NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency in this context considers the topic not as another political dispute over the war, but as a matter of memory, evidence, and legal responsibility. Israeli society has been living with the consequences of October 7 for almost three years, but the legal documentation of the crimes remains a separate and very complex stage.
The commission emphasizes: the distribution of such materials was not a side effect. In its assessment, it was part of a strategy — to intensify fear, prolong the suffering of families, and force society to relive the moment of the attack over and over again.
Captivity in Gaza as a continuation of the crime
The report separately discusses the period of hostage detention. The commission refers to testimonies of former hostages and other sources indicating sexual assaults, humiliations, sexual torture, and exploitation during captivity in the Gaza Strip.
In some cases, according to the commission, the violence continued for months. This changes the legal and moral framework: it is not only about crimes committed on the day of the invasion on October 7 but also about the continuation of violence after the kidnapping of people.
The authors of the report qualify the described actions as possible war crimes, crimes against humanity, acts of genocide, sexual torture, and terrorist crimes. They call on Israel and the international community to investigate these crimes, seek criminal prosecution of those responsible, impose sanctions against involved individuals and structures, and create special mechanisms for investigating sexual violence in armed conflict conditions.
Special tribunal: how Israel plans to try participants in the massacre
Against this backdrop, the Knesset approved a law to create a special military tribunal for militants involved in the attack on October 7. The law was supported by 93 out of 120 deputies, with no one voting against. The remaining deputies were absent or abstained.
This is a rare case of political agreement between the coalition and the opposition. Among the initiators of the bill are Yulia Malinovsky from ‘Our Home Israel,’ Simcha Rothman from ‘Religious Zionism,’ and Yariv Levin from ‘Likud.’
According to Reuters, Israel holds approximately 200–300 suspected militants captured after the attack, including members of Hamas’s elite unit ‘Nukhba.’ The exact number is classified. The trials are expected to take years.
The tribunal is to sit in Jerusalem and consider cases by a panel of three judges. The processes are planned to be public, and key hearings will be broadcast. Defendants will be able to participate in some sessions remotely from places of detention, and survivors and victims’ families will have the opportunity to attend certain hearings or observe them online.
Death penalty and legal disputes
The law allows for the possibility of a death sentence for some charges, but does not make it automatic.
Reuters clarifies: if such a sentence is passed, an automatic appeal must follow. AP also notes that the law has drawn criticism from human rights organizations, which fear the weakening of procedural guarantees and turning the processes into a public spectacle.
For Israeli society, this discussion is painful. On one hand, there is a demand for justice after the largest massacre in the country’s history. On the other hand, Israel must show that even the trial of terrorists is not an act of revenge, but a legally structured process.
This is where the commission’s report and the tribunal law intersect. The first collects and systematizes evidence. The second creates a legal framework in which the state can consider the cases of those involved in the attack, murders, kidnappings, violence, and hostage-taking.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants and other groups broke through the border from Gaza, attacked southern Israeli communities, military bases, roads, and the Nova music festival. According to international data, about 1,200 people were killed, most of them civilians, and 251 people were kidnapped to the Gaza Strip.
Now Israel enters the next stage — not only military and diplomatic but also judicial. It will be long, difficult, and contentious. But without such a stage, the history of October 7 will remain incomplete in a legal sense.