OCCUPIED AL-QUDS: Amnesty International on Thursday accused Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups for the first time of crimes against humanity during and after the October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the Gaza war, with Hamas rejecting the report as “lies”.
“Palestinian armed groups committed violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and crimes against humanity during their attacks in southern Israel that started on 7 October 2023,” the human rights watchdog said in the 173-page report.
Amnesty said the mass killing of civilians on October 7 amounted “to the crime against humanity of extermination”. Hamas rejected the report, saying it contained “inaccuracies and contradictions”.
“The report´s repetition of the lies and allegations promoted by the occupation (Israeli) government concerning rape, sexual violence, and the mistreatment of captives clearly demonstrates that the purpose of this report is incitement and distorting the image of the resistance,” the militant group said in a statement.
It called on Amnesty to retract the “flawed and unprofessional report”. Amnesty has also accused Israel of committing genocide in its retaliatory campaign in Gaza, an accusation Israel has vehemently denied.
The rights group said Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Gaza “continued to commit violations and crimes under international law in their holding and mistreatment of hostages and the withholding of bodies seized”. “The holding of hostages was done as part of an explicitly stated plan explained by the leadership of Hamas and of other Palestinian armed groups,” the report stated.
