Experts at the United Nations said on Monday that crimes committed against civilians during Hamas' October 7 attacks on Israel amounted to war crimes and could qualify as crimes against humanity, CNN reported.
In a statement from Geneva, the experts — Alice Jill Edwards, a special rapporteur on torture and other punishment, and Morris Tidball-Binz, a special rapporteur on "extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions" — called for full accountability for the widespread killings and sexual torture by the Hamas terrorists.
“As armed Palestinian groups rampaged through communities in Israel bordering the Gaza strip, thousands of people were subjected to targeted and brutal attacks, the vast majority of whom were civilians,” the statement said. “The growing body of evidence about reported sexual violence is particularly harrowing."
“These acts constitute gross violations of international law, amounting to war crimes which, given the number of victims and the extensive premeditation and planning of the attacks, may also qualify as crimes against humanity," the experts said.
After weeks of ignoring Hamas’ sexual violence during the October 7 attack, UN Women issued its first condemnation of the brutality in early December.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also waited nearly two months before he finally acknowledged that Hamas committed acts of sexual violence during the attack.
Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, said in response, “The Secretary-General's words only sharpen the fact that when it comes to Israeli women, sexual violence that has been proven by state authorities still needs to be ‘investigated.’ For him, when it comes to Israeli women, you can doubt the facts and wait 55 days to call an unknown party to conduct an ‘investigation.’ He does not acknowledge that Hamas committed these crimes!”