Human Rights Watch, an NGO better known for its anti-Israel positions, broke form on Wednesday to release a report documenting war crimes committed on Oct. 7.
The goal of the report, “Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel,” was to record “the nature and extent” of humanitarian law violations committed by terrorists on that day, in which some 1,200 Israelis, most civilians, were killed and 251 taken hostage.
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“Palestinian armed groups committed a widespread attack directed against the civilian population, meeting the definition required for crimes against humanity,” said an HRW spokeswoman in a press briefing on Monday ahead of the report’s release.
“We have further found that the killing of civilians and taking hostages were all central aims of the planned attack, and not actions that occurred as an afterthought or as a plan gone awry, or as isolated acts, for example, perpetrated by unaffiliated Palestinians from Gaza,” the spokeswoman said.
It found that five terrorist groups took part: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Fatah-associated Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Human Rights Watch devoted a lengthy section in the document to its methodology. It said it conducted 144 mostly in-person interviews in Israel in October and November 2023. It interviewed others remotely, including 94 survivors and witnesses from the Oct. 7 assault.
It also talked to family members of victims and survivors, Gazans, foreign workers and Arab Israelis, which it referred to in its report as “Palestinian citizens of Israel.”
The NGO also verified more than 280 videos and photographs taken during or just after the Oct. 7 invasion. One of its researchers attended a screening of the 45-minute video that had been compiled by the Israeli government mainly using footage from Hamas GoPro cameras and cellphones.
Human Rights Watch underscored the efforts it made to independently verify material.
“To determine the location of each video and photograph, researchers matched landmarks with available satellite imagery, street-level photographs, or other visual material,” the report said.
“Where possible, Human Rights Watch used the position of the sun and any resulting shadows visible in videos and photographs to estimate the time the content was recorded at. Researchers also confirmed that each piece of content had not appeared online prior to October 7, using various reverse search image engines,” it added.
HRW said it didn’t make use of interrogation videos of captured terrorists by Israeli authorities, claiming the “inherent unreliability” of such videos.
“All prisoners must be treated with dignity and not exposed to public curiosity, and such videos often use or encourage the use of torture or other forms of ill-treatment,” HRW said (italics in original).
In the interrogation videos released by the IDF, no signs of torture or physical abuse were evident as the terrorists offered up lurid details of their actions on Oct. 7, including murder and rape.
[The Jewish News Syndicate Report continues]
“Between October 7, 2023, and July 1, 2024, the hostilities resulted in at least 37,900 Palestinians killed, and 87,060 others injured, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. That figure includes an unreported number of Palestinian armed group fighters,” it said in the background section.
“As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated in December 2023, ‘International humanitarian law cannot be applied selectively. It is binding on all parties equally at all times, and the obligation to observe it does not depend on reciprocity.’”
View this Jewish News Syndicate Report from July 17th