Has Hamas commit mass rape during the october 7th attack?

1. What the official inquiries and rights groups found

United Nations investigators and the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict reported that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe conflict-related sexual violence, including rape and gang-rape, occurred across multiple sites on October 7, and that their team found “clear and convincing information” that some hostages endured sexualized torture while detained in Gaza ^{[1] [2]}; Human Rights Watch and other NGOs likewise documented indications that members of Hamas and allied armed groups committed gender‑based violence in several locations and called for further investigation into possible crimes against humanity including rape ^[3].

2. Evidence, testimonies and forensic limits

Investigators cite survivor and witness accounts, released-hostage testimony, photos and videos from attack sites that show bodies with signs consistent with sexual violence, and thousands of testimonies collected by Israeli authorities and rescue teams — while also noting significant problems preserving forensic evidence because of the chaos and subsequent hostilities that destroyed sites and remains ^{[5] [6] [7]}. Several organizations, including Physicians for Human Rights Israel and Amnesty, say they documented cases of sexual assault both during the attack and subsequently in captivity ^{[8] [9]}.

3. Disconfirmed claims and the information chaos

At the same time, rigorous reporting and fact-checking found some widely circulated claims were false or unverified: major outlets and the AP traced two prominent sexual‑violence stories about Oct. 7 to defective sourcing and misinformation, and the UN mission explicitly noted it could not independently verify all allegations because Israeli authorities limited access; some specific allegations in Be’eri were judged unfounded ^{[4] [2] [7]}. This mixture of confirmed, credible and debunked reports has complicated efforts to produce a single, settled accounting of how many rapes occurred and where.

4. Legal steps, charges and denials

The International Criminal Court prosecutor sought arrest warrants for senior Hamas leaders citing reasonable grounds to believe they bore responsibility for rape and other sexual violence as crimes against humanity, and Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and others have accused Hamas militants of committing sexual and gender‑based crimes amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity ^{[5] [9] [3]}. Hamas has denied that its forces committed sexual violence or systematically mistreated hostages, calling such reports flawed; international bodies and rights groups emphasize the need for full, independent access to corroborate testimonies and for prosecutions where evidence suffices ^{[10] [11]}.

5. Assessing the central question — “mass rape?”

Judging whether the attack constituted “mass rape” depends on definitions and the quality of available evidence: multiple credible institutions conclude there are reasonable grounds that rapes and gang-rapes occurred in multiple locations and that sexualized torture of hostages took place, which supports the assertion that sexual violence was widespread during the assault ^{[1] [2] [3]}. At the same time, investigators and reporters stress that many alleged incidents cannot be independently verified, that forensic evidence was often irretrievably lost, and that some high-profile stories were demonstrably false — facts that counsel caution about specific counts and about claims that every reported allegation is proven ^{[4] [2]}. The most defensible summary based on the reporting available is this: there is credible, corroborated evidence that Hamas fighters committed rape and other sexual violence during the October 7 attacks in multiple locations, but the precise scale, the full list of perpetrators, and whether sexual violence was centrally ordered versus committed by individuals remain matters under investigation and dispute ^{[1] [3] [6]}.