Israeli report documents direct testimonies of survivors of attacks, while rescuers describe repeated signs abuse in multiple locations at the site where the Supernova festival was held.
The new Israeli report on the attack of 7 October 2023 is not just another episode of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is about the documentation of a form of violence that, according to the evidence, was systematically used as a tool of terror against civilians.
And that is perhaps the darkest element of the Hamas attack: the transformation of sexual violence into a means of wartime humiliation, degradation and psychological breakdown.
The report is based on a vast amount of material: over 10,000 photographs and videos, more than 1,800 hours of analysed visual material and over 430 testimonies from survivors, eyewitnesses, former hostages, rescuers, forensic experts and relatives of victims. This size does not allow for easy dismissals of “isolated allegations” or “war propaganda”. Rather, it shows an organized effort to document events that unfolded simultaneously in different parts of southern Israel and Gaza.
The report identifies evidence of sexual violencein different locations: at the Nova festival, in kibbutzim near Gaza and in the Strip itself, on civilian escape routes and in military bases that were attacked. The crucial element is the repetition of similar complaints in different places and over the same period of time. This is what leads researchers to conclude that these are not isolated acts by individual perpetrators, but a scheme of use of force applied to the letter.
The Supernova Festival is perhaps the most prominent example. About 3,500 to 4,000 young people were trapped in a few hours of utter chaos. The surprise Hamas attack caused a total of 1,221 deaths. At the same time, 251 people were kidnapped, of whom 44 had already been killed during their abduction or later died. Of the 207 hostages taken alive to Gaza, 41 were killed during their captivity. The last 20 live hostages were released in October 2025, after intense pressure from the United States.
The report documents direct testimonies of survivors of sexual assaults, while rescuers describe repeated signs of abuse at multiple locations. Typical is Raj Cohen’s statement that “Hamas men pulled a woman out of the vehicle, took off her clothes and raped her. They stabbed her repeatedly, killing her, and continued to rape her after her death.”The images emerging from the testimonies and visual evidence point not only to a mass massacre, but to a form of violence that attempted to crush and humiliate the victims even after their deaths.
The report cites some 150 incidents with evidence of sexual violence. The authors themselves admit that the actual number may be higher, due to destruction of evidence, absence of surviving witnesses and the condition of the bodies. Dozens of forensic findings are classified as “consistent with sexual abuse”, although in many cases full confirmation is impossible.
This is precisely the historically crucial point. In most cases of mass violence, full forensic documentation comes years later – if it ever does. But the absence of absolute documentation in each individual case does not negate the big picture when hundreds of depositions, thousands of hours of footage and multiple independent sources converge in the same direction.
The report does not just describe a large-scale terrorist attack. It describes the use of sexual violence as a tool of war and ideological terror against civilian and youth populations.And this is where the political hypocrisy of the international community begins.
Hamas apparently rejects the allegations outright. But the UN and the European Union treat the contents of the report with a deafening silence. No serious international mobilization. No political pressure commensurate with the gravity of the allegations. No real public demand for accountability.
The picture that emerges is deeply problematic: as if there are victims of “different value” in the international political consciousness. When the victims are Jewish, much of international public opinion shows skepticism, cynical indifference or even satisfaction. When it is other cases, such as the Palestinians, international organizations, political parties, activist networks and a large section of Western “progressive” public opinion are immediately mobilized.
Moral outrage ultimately proves selective. And selective indignation is not humanism. The case of Francesca Albanese is illustrative of this hypocrisy. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories has been repeatedly accused of unilateralism, anti-Semitic rhetoric and alleged links to Hamas.
For all that, in much of European academia and politics he is treated almost as a moral authority. She was rolled out the red carpet at Panteion University in Athens and political leaders on the left welcomed her with open arms. Never, however, has she unequivocally condemned the crimes and outrages of Hamas, despite appearing as a defender of civilians and women.
