Nearly two years after the heinous terror attack, UN puts terrorist organisation Hamas on blacklist for sexual violence in armed conflicts over the atrocities of October 7
Nearly two years after the terrorist organisation Hamas inflicted unimaginable atrocities on civilians in Israel during the ghastly October 7 attacks, the terrorist organisation has been blacklisted by the United Nations for committing sexual crimes during the terror attack.
The terrorist organisation has been included by the UN under the “List of parties credibly suspected of committing or being responsible for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence in situations of armed conflict on the agenda of the Security Council”. It was announced in the document titled the Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence, dated July 15, 2025. This amounts to an official recognition before the international community of Hamas’s monstrosity unleashed on innocent, unarmed civilians.
In the report, the UN Secretary General António Guterres confirmed that the October 7 attacks were “led and coordinated by Hamas”. He added that, along with other Palestinian terrorist groups, including the military arms of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement, civilians from Gaza also took part in the attacks on Israel.
“In March 2024, the mission led by my Special Representative found clear and convincing information that some hostages taken to Gaza were subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence during their time in captivity,” the Secretary-General stated in the report. Notably, the Secretary-General had reportedly resisted the inclusion of Hamas in the UN blacklist.
As per the report, the findings were based on the “credible information” received by the UN Commission of Inquiry about hostages being subjected to sexual and gender-based violence, including sexualized torture, while in captivity. It revealed that following the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, several fully and partially naked bodies, mostly of women, showing signs of rapes and gangrapes were recovered.
“My Special Representative also found reasonable grounds to believe that sexual violence occurred during the attacks of 7 October 2023 in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape. Several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied, who had been shot multiple times, often in the head. Although circumstantial, such a pattern of undressing and restraining of victims may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence,” said the UN Secretary-General.
The report mentioned that in May 2024, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court submitted applications for warrants for the arrest of three political and military commanders of Hamas. The warrants cited reasonable grounds to believe that they bear criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including rape and other forms of sexual violence, committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine from at least 7 October 2023. However, the proceedings were halted by the Court after their deaths were confirmed.
The Secretary-General said that Hamas did not allow the UN representatives humanitarian access to hostages during the reporting period. He called for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and restoration of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The UN has also put Israel and Ukraine on notice for their potential listing.
Could not sleep for a week after seeing the scale of Hamas’s atrocities: UN Special Representative
The report comes after the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, reported on these crimes earlier this year. Patten was invited last year by the International Organisations Division of Israel’s Foreign Ministry to present before her the evidence of atrocities committed by Hamas against Israelis. After seeing a video of Hamas’s atrocities compiled by the Israel Defence Forces, Patten said that she could not sleep for a week. “Only after I saw the footage did I understand things I hadn’t before, in terms of the magnitude of the disaster,” she said.
Hamas is still said to hold around 50 hostages taken during the October 7 attacks, 20 of whom are believed to be alive. Israeli officials reportedly said that Hamas is still committing sexual violence against hostages.
The horror witnessed by the entire world on October 7, 2023
On the fateful day of October 7, 2023, thousands of terrorists of Hamas and other terrorist organisations inflicted a horror of unimaginable scale on Israel. The terrorists landed in Israel from land, sea, and air and launched massive attacks on the Nova festival, kibbutzim, several villages along the Gaza border, and Israeli military bases. The terror attack killed over 1,200 Israelis, including babies and foreign nationals, brutally assaulted, raped, and paraded women, and kidnapped over 230 Israeli and foreign nationals.
In February this year, the Association of Rape Crisis Centres in Israel (ARCCI) submitted a report to the United Nations detailing the sadistic and systematic extent of the sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists during the terror group’s brutal October 7 attack. The report stated that in many cases, the Hamas terrorists shoved knives in the victim’s genitals.
It revealed that several bodies of the victim were found bound and shackled, and their genitals were brutally mutilated using sharp weapons like knives. In some cases, weapons were found inserted inside the genitals of the victims.
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