HRW: At least 5 Palestinian groups committed crimes against humanity & war crimes in October 7 attacks

Palestinians transport a captured Israeli civilian, Noa Argamani, on a motorcycle during the Hamas attack on October 7 2023

Liza Rozovsky reports in Haaretz on 17 July 2024:

At least five armed Palestinian groups took part in the attack against Israeli border communities near the Gaza Strip on October 7, and all five are responsible for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the course of the attack, according to a Human Rights Watch report released Wednesday.

Hamas’ military wing, the Iz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was responsible for leading the attack, the report states.

HRW is one of the largest and most influential human rights organizations in the world. Over the last several months, it has published several reports harshly critical of Israel for the manner in which it has conducted the war in Gaza that the October 7 attack precipitated. HRW also accused Israel of deliberately starving the residents of Gaza.

The new report rebuts Hamas’ claims that its combatants were instructed not to harm children, women and the elderly in its attack on the border communities.   The claim is put forth in a report released in late January by Hamas entitled “Our Narrative – Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.” HRW also rebutted a Hamas claim in response to HRW’s question regarding whether the attack was deliberately directed at civilians and planned in advance.

HRW asserts that Hamas’ crimes, as well as those committed by other armed groups from Gaza, were part of a systematic plan. The report defines the murder and incarceration without trial committed by Palestinian organizations on October 7 as crimes against humanity and states that “the criminal acts of the killing of civilians and the taking of hostages were all central aims of the planned attack,” based on “the planning that went into the crimes” and not an afterthought or the result of “a plan gone awry” and involved numerous crimes, including murder and incarceration.  The report also calls for investigating suspicions of additional crimes against humanity, including extermination, persecution, rape and other sexual violence.

The report addressed claims made by Hamas and reported among other places on pro-Palestinian media outlets such as Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss alleging that the Israel Defense Forces is responsible for killing many Israelis in the course of the October 7 attacks.

Similar claims were made in Hamas’ response to the HRW, which appear in an annex to the report. The HRW found that, contrary to Hamas’ claim and the findings from Israel’s ongoing investigations of what happened on October 7, a relatively small number of civilian deaths could be attributed to crossfire between the Israeli army and armed Palestinian groups.

The report further emphasizes that in contrast to Hamas’ claims, the HRW found no evidence that most of the deaths were caused by Israeli forces’ heavy weaponry rather than by armed Palestinian groups.

The report does note reported cases of Israeli forces’ opening fire at Israeli civilians, including an incident in which hostages were taken at Kibbutz Be’eri and another at Kfar Azza. A member of that kibbutz, Dorin Cohen, recounted that terrorists had appeared to take over her home to use it as a base and that soldiers had fired at the window of her safe room when she opened it and called for help (The family was ultimately safely extricated from the house).

Logos & headbands of the Palestinian armed groups that HRW confirms participated in the 7 October 2023 attack

In addition to the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, the report mentions the involvement of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, the Quds Brigades; the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s armed wing, the National Resistance Brigades or Omar al-Qasim Forces; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s armed wing, the Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, formerly linked to the Fatah political faction.

The report lists dozens of crimes committed by these terrorist organizations (although the report’s authors refrain from using this term. They note that there is no consensus regarding the international definition of terrorism and that, in any event, the term is irrelevant to the obligations of combatants from the standpoint of international law).

In addition to the testimonies of dozens of survivors and families of victims and hostages, of emergency service staffers who were first to arrive on the scene and of forensic experts, the report is based on hundreds of photos and video clips, some of which were published on social media. Others reached HRW directly.

According to the report, HRW managed to verify 280 photos and video clips taken in part from footage from body cameras carried by terrorists and from cellphones and surveillance cameras.

To establish the involvement of the Palestinian groups that participated in the attack, the report’s authors analyzed material posted on these organizations’ Telegram accounts, which included claims of responsibility for those and other attacks on October 7. The report was based on these Telegram accounts and other platforms.

The HRW says it identified clothing identified with the Al-Qassam Brigades in 39 videos taken at 14 locations, including Be’eri, Sufa, the Erez border crossing, Ein Hashlosha, Kerem Shalom, Re’im, the Nova music festival, Sderot, Alumim, Kissufim, Nirim, Nahal Oz, Kfar Azza and the Paga military base.

“The worst cases of abuse – killings, torture and hostage taking – were perpetrated by at least five armed groups involved in the attack, led by the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing,” Belkis Wille, the associate director of the crisis, conflict and arms division at Human Rights Watch told Haaretz.  “While civilians might have been involved in some instances of abuse including looting, our research showed that it was clearly fighters who perpetrated most of the worst abuses,” Wille said.

Hamas released a statement responding to the HRW report, saying it “fully adapted the Israeli narrative,” and that the report ignored everything that happened before October 7, and the Palestinian people’s suffering.

Hamas claims the report is unprofessional, and instead of showing a neutral legal position, it has become “Israeli propaganda.” According to Hamas, “the biggest lies in the report are the claims of rape and sexual violence with no evidence.”

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