[Reader Advisory: This article includes graphic descriptions of the sexual violence that took place on October 7th, drawn from the Civil Commission Report. Some readers may find the content distressing.]

Despite the clear evidence, many people denied, minimized or downplayed what happened on October 7th. In their minds, Hamas are and were misunderstood activists – as Jeremy Corbyn, ex leader of the Labour party in the UK, famously hailed them – “friends”, rather than bloodthirsty crazed murderers . Given the grotesque halo of kindness that so many progressives placed on them – after all how possibly could downtrodden “minority groups” like Hamas or the civilians who happily came over the fences with them ever do any wrong – it wasn’t really that surprising that the international feminist movement just shrugged and for so long commented little more than “nothing to see here”. But it was clear from when the first reports of the atrocities started coming through, that the agenda of Hamas on October 7th had been to commit some of the most awful carnage and sexualized violence ever seen in post medieval times. No, I think more accurately it came close to equalling any of the horrors seen in the medieval or ancient worlds. The Civil Commission on the October 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children released their meticulous report on gender based violence during the attacks on May 12th 2026. This followed on from a number of prior reports by the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel (February 2024), the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (May 2024), Human Rights Watch (July 2024), and the Dinah Project (July 2025). The Civil Commission builds on those reports through its forensic analysis and cross referencing of survivor, first responder and other witness testimony, and sources of physical evidence. As well as the videos of their atrocities put online by Hamas; some sent to family members using the social media accounts of the victims, and the taunting messages sent by Hamas over weeks and months to torture the parents of the hostages.

Reading the report is terrifying. For me, and I do not wish to show any disrespect to the memory of the victims of the Shoah, it felt similar in its impact to when, as a teenager, I first became aware of the crimes of the Nazis. Its impact is to dislocate you from your grasp on reality – the overwhelming horror and pain of what happened tear away those foundations that you thought anchored you – most viscerally it tugs violently at your belief, the inner voice which gets us out of bed every day, that the world is fundamentally a good and safe place. If you are a Jew, as with the Shoah, this account of October 7th pulls that away for ever.

Some we already know.

That 41 children, ranging in age from four and a half months to 17 years who were violently abducted from their homes. That the perpetrators killed the parents of many of those before their eyes, moments before abducting........

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