Human Rights Watch, an NGO better known for its anti-Israel positions, broke form on Wednesday to release a report documenting war crimes committed on Oct. 7.
The goal of the report, “Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel,” was to record “the nature and extent” of humanitarian law violations committed by terrorists on that day, in which some 1,200 Israelis, most civilians, were killed and 251 taken hostage.
“Palestinian armed groups committed a widespread attack directed against the civilian population, meeting the definition required for crimes against humanity,” said an HRW spokeswoman in a press briefing on Monday ahead of the report’s release.
“We have further found that the killing of civilians and taking hostages were all central aims of the planned attack, and not actions that occurred as an afterthought or as a plan gone awry, or as isolated acts, for example, perpetrated by unaffiliated Palestinians from Gaza,” the spokeswoman said.
It found that five terrorist groups took part: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Fatah-associated Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
Human Rights Watch devoted a lengthy section in the document to its methodology. It said it conducted 144 mostly in-person interviews in Israel in October and November 2023. It interviewed others remotely, including 94 survivors and witnesses from the Oct. 7 assault.
It also talked to family members of victims and survivors, Gazans, foreign workers and Arab Israelis, which it referred to in its report as “Palestinian citizens of Israel.”
The NGO also verified more than 280 videos and photographs taken during or just after the Oct. 7 invasion. One of its researchers attended a screening of the 45-minute video that had been compiled by the Israeli government mainly using footage from Hamas GoPro cameras and cellphones.
Human Rights Watch underscored the efforts it made to independently verify material.
“To determine the location of each video and photograph, researchers matched landmarks with available satellite imagery, street-level photographs, or other visual material,” the report said.
“Where possible, Human Rights Watch used the position of the sun and any resulting shadows visible in videos and photographs to estimate the time the content was recorded at. Researchers also confirmed that each piece of content had not appeared online prior to October 7, using various reverse search image engines,” it added.
HRW said it didn’t make use of interrogation videos of captured terrorists by Israeli authorities, claiming the “inherent unreliability” of such videos.
“All prisoners must be treated with dignity and not exposed to public curiosity, and such videos often use or encourage the use of torture or other forms of ill-treatment,” HRW said (italics in original).
In the interrogation videos released by the IDF, no signs of torture or physical abuse were evident as the terrorists offered up lurid details of their actions on Oct. 7, including murder and rape.
HRW included Hamas’s response to its summary findings, in which the terrorist group claimed it did not target civilians and blamed Israeli civilian casualties on Gazan civilians who rushed in and other groups not connected to its “military operation.”
“Human Rights Watch has found that based on the information presented in this report, the Hamas claim that on October 7 its forces did not seek to harm Israeli civilians is false,” the report said.
Given HRW’s history of criticizing Israel, including accusing it of apartheid and war crimes, the issuance of the report has raised suspicion in some quarters of the group’s motives.
Tokenism and manipulation
Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute that keeps tabs on anti-Israel organizations and has for years documented HRW’s bias against Israel, said in response to the report, “This is an obvious example of HRW’s cynical tokenism and political manipulation using the facade of human rights.
“No one needs HRW to tell us about atrocities that were broadcast live more than nine months ago. This publication adds nothing of substance—instead it exploits the tragedies of the victims and hostages to score a few cheap points through blatantly false ‘balance’ with gullible donors, board members, and supporters,” he said.
The report does not suggest a change in direction for Human Rights Watch, which included in the report’s background section the following statement:
“Human Rights Watch has found that Israel’s prolonged closure of the Gaza Strip constitutes a form of collective punishment and is part of the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution that Israeli authorities are committing against Palestinians.”
And although HRW detailed its high-level verification efforts before accepting Israeli evidence of the Oct. 7 atrocities, it appeared to accept wholesale the casualty numbers put out by Hamas’s Gaza Health Ministry.
“Between October 7, 2023, and July 1, 2024, the hostilities resulted in at least 37,900 Palestinians killed, and 87,060 others injured, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. That figure includes an unreported number of Palestinian armed group fighters,” it said in the background section.
“As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated in December 2023, ‘International humanitarian law cannot be applied selectively. It is binding on all parties equally at all times, and the obligation to observe it does not depend on reciprocity.’”