| Allegations of genocide in the October 7 attacks | |
|---|---|
| Part of theGaza war | |
 | |
| Location | Gaza envelope,Southern District, Israel |
| Date | October 7–8, 2023 |
| Target | Israelis |
Attack type | Mass shooting,immolation |
| Deaths | 1,163 killed[1] |
| Defenders |  Israel |
| Accused | |
Allegations have been made that theOctober 7 attacks were conducted withgenocidal intent towardIsraelis, and that it constituted agenocide or agenocidal massacre (or a wave of such massacres). In the course of the assault, Palestinian militants attacked communities, a music festival, and military bases in the region ofsouthern Israel known as theGaza envelope. The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,163 Israelis and foreigners, two thirds of whom werecivilians. The genocidal acts that were said to have been committed include mass killings,dismemberment, infliction of serious bodily and mental harm,immolation,rape and sexual violence, anddecapitation.
Various legal experts andgenocide studies scholars cite a multitude of reasonings for their allegation of genocide, including claims that victims were targeted for theirIsraeli-Jewish identity,[2] that Hamas still adheres to the antisemitic language of itsfounding charter,[3][4][5] or that the allegedintent to destroy the Israeli people "in part" fits the legal definition of genocide.[2][6] Comparisons of the attack tothe Holocaust have been made.[7][8] Criticisms against the allegation include citing thetaking of hostages as proof that there was no genocidal intent, or that the attack was likely intended as aterrorist attack.[9][10]
A legal complaint that Hamas committed genocide was brought to theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) in November 2023.[11][12] An ICC arrest warrant for Hamas leaderMohammed Deif claimed that the group committedextermination.[13]
Both Israel and Palestine frequently accuse the other of planning to commit genocide.[14][15]
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On October 7, 2023, coinciding with the Jewish holiday ofSimchat Torah,Hamas launched asurprise attack on Israel from theGaza Strip. Around 6,000 Palestinians breached the border in 119 places and infiltrated Israel, including 3,800 from the Hamas "elite Nukhba forces" and 2,200 Palestinian civilians and other militants.[16] 1,163 Israelis and foreigners were killed,[1] including 859 civilians, 282 soldiers, 57 policemen and 10Shin Bet members.[17][12]
The militants stand accused of various atrocities, includingsexual violence.[18][19] About 250 Israeli civilians and soldiers were alsotaken as hostages to the Gaza Strip, including 30 kidnapped children.[20] The Hamas assault prompted anIsraeli counter-offensive in Gaza. The day is considered the bloodiest inIsrael's history and the largest massacre ofJews sincethe Holocaust.[21][22]
Al-Qassam militants extensively recorded their actions throughbody cameras, probably for propaganda purposes.[23] They also stole victims' phones to livestream their deaths on social media. Additionally, they posted messages or media on victims' social media accounts and went as far as calling relatives to taunt them.[12]
Documents discovered on the bodies of Hamas operatives in Israel indicated that carrying out massacres was a key objective of the invasion. Israeli first responders reportedly found instructions on the bodies of the operatives, directing them to target civilian populations, including elementary schools and a youth center, with the explicit order to "kill as many people as possible". The documents also outlined the directive to take hostages for future negotiation purposes.[24][25]
Ghazi Hamad, a seniorHamas official, said in a late October 2023 interview that theOctober 7 attack was only the beginning and thatHamas would launch “a second, a third, a fourth” attack untilIsrael was “annihilated.” In the same interview, he said thatHamas “did not want to harm civilians,” but there had been “complications on the ground,” and described Hamas’s actions asjustified resistance, stating that “we are the victims ofthe occupation.”[26]
On 16 October 2023, an open letter signed by around 240 international legal experts argued that theHamas-led attack on 7 October 2023 “most probably” constituted an international crime ofgenocide, stating that the acts appeared to have been carried out withintent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group (Israelis).[6]. The letter was endorsed by legal experts from prominent institutions, includingHarvard andColumbia Law Schools,King's College London, and theHebrew University of Jerusalem.Dan Eldad, former acting State Attorney of Israel from February to May 2020, played a key role in drafting the letter. TheRaoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, chaired by former Canadian Justice MinisterIrwin Cotler, also signed the letter.[27][28]
On 31 August 2025, theInternational Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), the world's biggest academic association of genocide scholars, passed a resolution saying that Israel has committedgenocide in Gaza.[29][30][31]Melanie O'Brien, a professor and president of theIAGS, called the resolution a "definitive statement from experts in the field ofgenocide studies that what is going on on the ground inGaza isgenocide". It is the ninth time since its 1994 founding that theIAGS has passed a resolution recognising an ongoing or historicalgenocide.[32][31]
In response, the "Academic Engagement Network", which seeks to counter "denigration of Jewish and Zionist identities", published an open letter authored by Elliot Malin, founder and president of Alpine Strategies, urging theIAGS to retract the declaration.[33] Titled "Scholars for Truth About Genocide", the letter was signed by several hundred people, including attorneyAlan Dershowitz, and severalHolocaust educators and survivors' children,[34] and was promoted by pro-Israel figures such asUK Lawyers for Israel and Israel'sMinistry of Foreign Affairs.[35] It argued that theIAGS resolution contained significant errors, such as overlooking the role of Hamas, which the letter argued was the only party in theGaza war that had committedgenocide.[34] The letter was subsequently found to feature some signatories whose names had been added without their consent, faked individuals, and the names of people who were not academics.[33][35] The fact-checking websiteMisbar said that it could not find any previous activity by Scholars for Truth About Genocide, and stated, "The statement's format and content also lack the credibility and structure expected from a scientific or academic document—contrary to the claims made by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The investigation found the statement relies on selective citations, omission, and misleading framing, falling short of the academic standards required to engage with theIAGS report."[35]
TheNew York Review of Books published an open letter from 16 scholars of antisemitism and the Holocaust which argued against the comparison. The letter stated:
Israeli leaders and others are using theHolocaust framing to portray Israel's collective punishment of Gaza as a battle for civilization in the face of barbarism, thereby promoting racist narratives aboutPalestinians. This rhetoric encourages us to separate this current crisis from the context out of which it has arisen. Seventy-five years of displacement, fifty-six years of occupation, and sixteen years of theGaza blockade have generated an ever-deteriorating spiral of violence that can only be arrested by a political solution. There is no military solution in Israel-Palestine, and deploying aHolocaust narrative in which an “evil” must be vanquished by force will only perpetuate an oppressive state of affairs that has already lasted far too long.[36]
Genocide Watch has accused both Hamas and Israel of committing acts of genocide in theGaza war.[37] On 17 October 2023, it published a "Genocide Emergency Alert" stating that "Hamas targeted Israelis simply because they were Israelis" and describing the attacks as "crimes against humanity, and war crimes."[38] On 24 October 2023, Genocide Watch issued a follow-up statement noting that scholars of Holocaust and genocide studies, includingGregory H. Stanton andIsrael Charny asserted that Hamas' actions against Israeli civilians to qualify as genocide andcrimes against humanity.[39]
TheJerusalem Institute of Justice argued in March 2024 that thePalestinian Authority was complicit in the genocide due to its "Pay for slay" policy, as well as their endorsement of the attack.[40]
In an opinion article forThe Hill, Israeli human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky andStanislav Pavlovschi, a former judge at theEuropean Court of Human Rights, asserted that Ghazi Hamad's statement that Hamas would repeat the October 7 massacre "again and again"[26] was evidence of the group's genocidal intentions.[41]
SociologistMartin Shaw viewedHamas' attack as "a wave of 'genocidal massacres,' localized mass killings whose victims were defined by their Israeli-Jewish identity", adding that the concept of the genocidal massacre, first proposed byLeo Kuper, was "a logical extension of the notion in the convention that genocide can include destroying a group 'in part.'"[2]Stephen D. Smith, a specialist ingenocide, also characterized themassacres on October 7 as agenocide.[42]Adam Jones, author of a textbook on genocide, said Hamas' "wild and indiscriminate killing" qualified as a "genocidal massacre" that should be "acknowledged and condemned as such", but the very restrictive intentionality requirement in the legal definition of genocide was still a "high evidentiary bar to reach".[9] Israeli historian and holocaust specialistRaz Segal similarly said: "I definitely see intent to kill a significant number of members of the group, to instill unbelievable trauma and terror among members of the group. But I don't see intent to destroy in relation to theHamas attack that would render it an act ofgenocide."[9]
Historian and professor of genocide studiesUğur Ümit Üngör noted that "many commentators rightly pointed out that Hamas committed a genocidal massacre", while also highlighting the killing ofArab Israelis andBedouins during Hamas' attack as evidence that it may not have been "group selective".[43] He suggested that the attack might fall under the category of "subaltern genocide",[a] drawing comparisons to themass killing ofpied-noirs in Algeria.[43] Political scientist Abdelwahab El-Affendi refuted the "subaltern genocide" thesis, pointing to a "near-consensus" in the field ofgenocide studies that "genocides are almost invariably perpetrated bystates", which does not apply to theGazan enclave.[45] He stated that the attacks were consistent withterrorism and mass violence, but that the taking ofhostages for prisoner exchanges indicated that the intent of the attacks was not genocidal.[10] According to international law expert Raphael van Steenberghe, a lack of evidence thatHamas intended to destroy a substantial part of theJewish population is "arguably the only obstacle to qualifying theOctober 7 attacks as involving a crime ofgenocide", asHamas "may well have anticipated that their operations could not extend beyond a limited geographical area".[46]
Law researcher Avraham Russell Shalev argues that Hamas's long-standing ideological framework is relevant for assessing genocidal intent. Shalev states that the scale, brutality, and targeting patterns of the October 7 attacks reflect Hamas's aims and that the attack represents not only a genocidal act but the operationalization of a sustained genocidal worldview.[47]
Genocide scholars have argued that although there was a clear intention to kill a significant number of members of a group, genocide is more than that - it requires an intent to destroy a group or a substantial part of it,[9] but that was never a possibility. Scholars have also cited thetaking of hostages as proof that there was no genocidal intent.[10]
Gábor Halmai, Professor Emeritus of Constitutional and International Law at theEuropean University Institute,[48] stated that the internal conflict caused by the2023 Israeli judicial reform was interrupted by "Hamas' genocidal attack on 7 October 2023". He also predicted that the "Netanyahu government's genocidal reaction toHamas's genocide" would further endanger internal democracy.[49]
British historianNiall Ferguson characterized theevents of October 7 as indicative ofHamas' intent to re-enact theHolocaust, and stated that Hamas should be "destroyed" to prevent this.[7][50]Gideon Greif, aHolocaust historian, drew parallels between theOctober 7 attacks and theHolocaust in an article forMaariv. He highlighted the infliction of extreme suffering, including immolation, mutilation of corpses, alleged rape, and the kidnapping of babies; and the shared antisemitic hatred betweenNazis andHamas as evident in recorded statements ofHamas operatives proudly announcing the murder ofJews; and the extreme lack of mercy displayed by the attackers.[8] Philip Spencer, a genocide scholar and author of numerous papers about modernantisemitism, stated that theviolence on October 7 was "deliberately carried out to remindJews of the extreme violence used by theEinsatzgruppen".[51]
Israeli historianHavi Dreifuss wrote that "Even though Hamas is unable to replicate the scale of theHolocaust, one cannot ignore the numerous voices that rightly point to experiential elements and ideologies that exhibit similarities", also adding that "These men, women, and children weren't murdered for their actions, but rather, as in theHolocaust, for their very existence."[52]
According to German political scientistMatthias Küntzel: "there are indeed clearly identifiable lines of continuity linking the anti-Jewish terror of the Nazis with that of Hamas." Küntzel describedOctober 7 as the result of widespreadantisemitism in theArab world which dated back to the 1930s, claiming thatHamas viewed theHolocaust as "a brilliant achievement that should be repeated".[53]
British academicOmar McDoom wrote in theJournal of Genocide Research that comparisons between theHolocaust andOctober 7 are indicative of a pro-Israel bias in sections of theHolocaust studies community.McDoom argues that the comparison is "problematic" because "the Germans were not an occupied and oppressed people. AndGaza is not a powerful, expansionary state. To the contrary."[54]
Genocide scholarOmer Bartov called the comparison "false, misleading, and ideologically driven", arguing that unlike theHolocaust, the root cause was not antisemitism but decades of Israeli oppression.[55]
Some scholars have cautioned against narratives that frame marginalized groups as existential or genocidal threats, arguing that similar accusations have historically been used to justify repression. Writing in theJournal of Genocide Research, Abdelwahab El-Affendi argued that accusations of genocidal intent have at times been embedded in broader narratives of insecurity and conspiracy, including historical examples in which Jews were portrayed as threats to dominant groups, and suggested that such framing warrants critical scrutiny in contemporary debates.[10]
Analysts note that the1988 Hamas charter contains internally contrasting elements. Some scholars emphasize passages such as Article 7, which includes language widely described as antisemitic, as central to understanding Hamas ideology. Others point to provisions such as Article 31, which states that followers of different religions could live in peace under Islamic rule, arguing that the document reflects ideological inconsistency rather than a single coherent doctrine. Studies of Hamas’s later statements and documents, including their2017 revised charter describe a shift toward politicalpragmatism andnationalist framing, with clearer distinctions betweenJudaism andZionism emerging over time. Debate continues over whether this reflects clarification of earlier positions, ideological evolution, or strategic repositioning.[56][57]
In December 2023 theInternational Association of Genocide Scholars published a research brief arguing that the statements ofHamas leadership and the scope and intent of the October 7 attacks aligned withHamas' 1988 charter, and shows that the attack was genocidal in nature[58]
In an interview withAl Jazeera in December 2023, formerICC prosecutorLuis Moreno Ocampo said that theattack on October 7 was "...agenocide, because it's an attack seeking to destroy a group, in this case Israelis, in Palestine", something he bases on conversations he had while working in the region, while acknowledging that the2017 Hamas charter could, after investigation, show that they have adjusted their goals. He also said thatIsrael's siege of Gaza "is acrime against humanity and a form ofgenocide", and called for investigations of both parties.[59].
In an opinion article forWSJ,Qanta A. Ahmed shared her firsthand experience as a human-rights observer inIsrael following theOctober 7 attacks, branding the assaults by Hamas as a "genocidal massacre", and argued for the attacks to be legally designated as such.[60]The Economist has argued that Hamas fighters who conducted the attack on October 7 were carrying out actions in line with their genocidal intentions outlined in the group's founding charter.[4]
In a December 2023 survey conducted byHarvard CAPS and the Harris Poll, 73% of American respondents viewed Hamas attacks against Jews as genocidal in nature, and 74% believed that Hamas harbored intentions of committing genocide against Jews in Israel.[61]
American counterterrorism analystBruce Hoffman opined thatHamas has consistently maintained genocidal intentions, pointing to the genocidal and antisemitic language of their founding charter. Hoffman noted that although therevised Hamas charter does not contain the same explicitly violent rhetoric, it nevertheless asserted a desire for the destruction of Israel though military force.[62]
John Kirby, US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications, accusedHamas of "genocidal intentions against the people of Israel. They would like to see it wiped off the map, they said so on purpose. And they've said that they're not going to stop. What happened on the 7th of October is going to happen again and again and again. And what happened on the 7th of October? Murder; slaughter of innocent people in their homes or at a music festival. That's genocidal intentions."[63] PresidentDonald Trump stated that Hamas's acts on7 October 'was genocide at the highest level'.[64]
At the UN's European headquarters, Yeela Cytrin, a legal advisor at the Mission of Israel to theUN inGeneva, emphasized: "The attacks byHamas onOctober 7 were motivated by a genocidal ideology."[65]
In November 2023, French diplomat and lawyerFrançois Zimeray, representing the families of nineIsraeli victims of theOctober 7 Hamas-led attacks, filed a complaint at theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) accusingHamas ofgenocide.[11][12]
In February 2024, a separate complaint was filed with theICC by a delegation of family members ofIsraeli hostages being held inGaza, accusingHamas of committingwar crimes.[66]
On 20 May 2024,ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan announced that his office had filed applications for arrest warrants forHamas leadersYahya Sinwar,Mohammed Deif, andIsmail Haniyeh, as well asIsraeli leadersBenjamin Netanyahu andYoav Gallant, alleging responsibility forwar crimes andcrimes against humanity.[67]
On 21 November 2024, theICC issued an arrest warrantMohammed Deif. TheICC found reasonable grounds to believe thathostage-taking during the7 October operation was conducted with the aim of negotiating the release ofPalestinian prisoners held inIsrael, and thatwar crimes andcrimes against humanity were committed during theattacks.[68]
On 21 November 2024, theICC also issued arrest warrants forIsraeli officialsBenjamin Netanyahu andYoav Gallant forwar crimes andcrimes against humanity.[69]
On 26 February 2025, theICC terminated proceedings againstMohammed Deif and rendered his arrest warrant without effect following the Prosecution’s notification of his death.[70]
The Great Rebellion and the Haitian slave uprising are two examples of what we refer to as 'subaltern genocide': cases in which subaltern actors—those objectively oppressed and disempowered—adopt genocidal strategies to vanquish their oppressors.
p.102 (pdf p.3): '...despite the clear distinction Hamas has made over the years between Zionism and Judaism… the new document offers a definitive framing of the struggle against Zionism and Israel as having nothing to do with religion.'; p.110 (pdf p.11): 'Hamas's new document has shifted the movement's positions and policies further toward the spheres of pragmatism and nationalism as opposed to dogma and Islamism.'
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)p.13: 'Although Hamas did use the terms 'Jews' and 'Zionists' interchangeably in the past, in recent years it has consistently used 'Zionists'…'; p.44: '...the text of the Charter clearly leaves room for a Jewish minority to live in an Islamic Palestinian state.'
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)Additionally, 84% of Americans said they believe that the October 7 massacre was a terrorist attack, with almost three-fourths (73%) saying it was genocidal in nature and 73% saying it was not justified by the grievances of Palestinians. ... Additionally, almost three-fourths (74%) of Americans said they believe Hamas wants to commit genocide against the Jews in Israel, although only 58% of those between the ages of 18-24 said the same.
The head of the legal team, Shelly Yeviv Aini, stated that "these crimes, including genocide, hostage taking, enforced disappearance, torture and sexual violence cannot and should not go unpunished".
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)The Prosecution had initially filed applications for warrants of arrest for two other senior leaders of Hamas, namely Mr Ismail Haniyeh and Mr Yahya Sinwar. Following confirmation of their deaths, the Chamber granted the withdrawal of the applications on 9 August 2024 and 25 October 2024, respectively. With respect to Mr Deif, the Prosecution indicated that it would continue to gather information with respect to his reported death. On 15 November 2024, the Prosecution, referring to information from both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, notified the Chamber that it is not in a position to determine whether Mr Deif has been killed or remains alive. Therefore, the Chamber issues the present warrant of arrest.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)