Hamas killed palestinians

1. What the independent verifications show: deliberate killings on Oct. 7

Human Rights Watch analyzed and authenticated multiple pieces of video from the October 7, 2023 operation described as “Hamas-led” and concluded the footage shows three incidents of deliberate killings by Hamas-led gunmen, highlighting incidents that investigators say are potential war crimes and underscoring that the International Criminal Court can investigate serious crimes by Palestinian armed groups as well as by Israeli authorities ^[1].

2. Abuse and deaths among people captured or held in Gaza

A detailed Amnesty International inquiry concluded that “the vast majority” of civilians who died in connection with the October 7 attacks were killed by Palestinian fighters, and that some of those seized and detained in Gaza were subjected to physical and sexual violence and others were killed by their captors — a finding that documents killings of Palestinians at the hands of armed Palestinian groups ^[2].

3. Internal Palestinian violence: clans, security forces and casualties

Beyond the Israel–Hamas confrontation, reporting shows Hamas has engaged in lethal internal operations against Palestinian clans and rival armed groups inside Gaza: BBC reporting documents raids and fierce clashes in Khan Younis and Gaza City in which Hamas operations or clashes with clans like the Dughmush and al-Mujaida have left multiple people dead, with eyewitnesses and local sources describing bodies and heavy fighting ^{[3] [4] [5]}. These stories illustrate that Hamas has been both an agent of violence against other Palestinians and a target in internecine rivalries.

4. Historical context: years of factional violence and governance responsibility

Hamas’s role as an armed actor and governing authority in Gaza is longstanding; historical summaries note episodes of violent internecine conflict in 2007 and subsequent periods in which more than 90 people were killed during factional fighting as governance collapsed, situating recent lethal incidents within an extended pattern of political and armed competition among Palestinian actors ^[6].

5. How Hamas operations have endangered Palestinian civilians beyond direct killings

Human-rights monitors and NGOs have documented that Hamas has launched rockets from or positioned fighters and weaponry in and near civilian areas, actions that international rights reporting says endanger Palestinian civilians; such tactics, while not always direct killings by Hamas of civilians, contribute to civilian harm and are raised in critiques of the group’s conduct ^[7].

6. Alternative narratives, accountability and the limits of current reporting

Some reporting emphasizes that many of the dead in Gaza are the result of Israeli military operations and wider warfare — for example Reuters cites Gaza health ministry tallies and notes accusations of large-scale Palestinian deaths from Israeli assaults — highlighting that attribution of every Palestinian death requires careful, incident-by-incident investigation and that multiple actors have caused Palestinian fatalities in the same periods ^[8]. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty explicitly call for more investigation and for accountability mechanisms such as the ICC to examine crimes by all parties ^{[1] [2]}. The provided sources do not comprehensively enumerate totals of Palestinians killed by Hamas across all incidents, and this analysis does not claim figures beyond what those reports supply.

7. Bottom line: nuance without exculpation

Documented evidence from reputable human-rights groups and mainstream reporting confirms that Hamas has killed Palestinians in specific verified incidents — including deliberate killings during attacks, lethal mistreatment of captives, and deadly internal raids or clashes with Palestinian clans — while the broader picture of fatalities in Gaza involves multiple actors and causes and requires continued independent investigation for full accountability ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [7]}.