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A United Nations commission investigating the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent conflict in Gaza has accused both Palestinian armed groups and Israel of committing war crimes, and the panel said that Israel\u2019s conduct of the war included crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n
In a report released on Wednesday, the three-person commission \u2014 led by Navi Pillay, a former United Nations human rights chief \u2014 provided the most detailed U.N. examination yet of events on and since Oct. 7. The report does not itself carry any penalties, but it lays out a legal analysis of actions in the Gaza conflict that is likely to be weighed by the International Court of Justice and in other international criminal proceedings. Israel did not cooperate<\/a> with the investigation and protested the panel\u2019s assessment of its behavior, the panel said.<\/p>\n The report said that Hamas\u2019s military wing and six other Palestinian armed groups \u2014 aided in some instances by Palestinian civilians \u2014 killed and tortured people during the Oct. 7 assault on Israel in which more than 800 civilians were among the more than 1,200 killed. An additional 252 people, including 36 children, were taken hostage, the report said.<\/p>\n \u201cMany abductions were carried out with significant physical, mental and sexual violence and degrading and humiliating treatment, including in some cases parading the abductees,\u201d the report said. \u201cWomen and women\u2019s bodies were used as victory trophies by male perpetrators.\u201d<\/p>\n Hamas has rejected all accusations that its forces engaged in sexual violence against Israeli women, the commission noted.<\/p>\n The commission also cited significant evidence of the desecration of corpses, including sexualized desecration, decapitations, lacerations, burning and the severing of body parts.<\/p>\n