On 04 March 2024, the UN’s special envoy on sexual violence in conflict has reported that there is “clear and convincing information that sexual assaults including rape and gang-rape in several places took place during the October 7 attacks by Hamas. 

It also believes that some women and children hostages held by Hamas had been subjected to rape and sexualised torture and that there were “reasonable grounds” to believe such abuses were “ongoing”.

On 7 October 2023, in the early morning hours, Hamas and other armed groups from Gaza attacked Israel, firing barrages of rockets towards the southern and central parts of the country. The armed groups crossed the Gaza border fence into Israeli territory by land, air, and sea, where they injured, brutalised, and killed Israeli forces and Israeli and foreign civilians, including more than 360 attendees of a music festival near Re’im and residents of kibbutzim Kfar Azza and Be’eri, Holit, Nor Oz, Nachal Oz and others.  As well as towns, Ofakim and Shderot.  See map of the massacres.

Over three days, there were gun battles and hostage situations in southern Israeli settlements and villages, with the Israeli army only regaining control on 9 October. Indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli cities, including Ben Gurion Airport near Lod, continued in the weeks after that.

Overall, more than 1,200 Israeli and foreign nationals in Israel were killed and around 5,400 more injured; more than 200 were abducted to Gaza, amongst them babies, children, and the elderly, according to Israeli sources.  Because of the condition many of the bodies were in, forensic teams struggled to identify all victims, which made the accurate count of hostages extremely difficult. 

According to reports, first responders encountered “horrifying scenes, including the slaughter of elderly people and finding bloody rooms crowded with massacred civilians”. Footage of the 7 October attacks screened by the Israeli military reportedly depicts “grenades thrown directly at families, a man being decapitated with a shovel from his garden, [and] the tiny burned bodies of babies”, amongst other “harrowing” visuals.