Human Rights Watch report says Hamas-led militants committed 'hundreds' of war crimes on Oct. 7
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00:00Well, those are the news headlines in a report released today
00:04The organization Human Rights Watch says that Hamas led other Palestinian armed groups in
00:10Committing hundreds of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the October the 7th attack on Israel that set off the Gaza War
00:19Hamas has reacted with fury to what is one of the most in-depth international studies on the matter and
00:25Hamas demands that Human Rights Watch withdraw the report and in its words
00:30Apologize. Well, I'm now joined on the line by ABC News
00:35correspondent Jordana Miller in Jerusalem
00:39Jordana then good to have you with us
00:41Can you give us a bit more detail about you know?
00:45What's actually in this report and how it's being received in Israel? What kind of response there's been?
00:51Well, as you said the Human Rights Watch report says that Hamas
00:58led
00:59four other groups of militants
01:02In the attack on October 7th and that they committed war crimes and crimes against humanity and those crimes
01:10include
01:11killing
01:12kidnapping
01:13torturing
01:15sexual violence
01:17Using people as human shields
01:20And this is an important report because remember Hamas initially denied that they
01:27intentionally
01:28We're gonna carry out such a wide-scale attack saying well
01:32all of these people kind of joined in and they there were civilians that came over from the areas that they
01:38Blew that they breached the border and Human Rights Watch says no
01:43they found that most of the people who took part in the attack were
01:48members of militant groups and that Hamas had
01:52planned they had
01:54intentionality to carry out a massive wide-scale attack against
01:59Civilian targets and that's also a key part of this report
02:03You know Human Rights Watch says Hamas went out and attacked
02:0926 different
02:11locations
02:12And killed and kidnapped
02:15Israelis and other
02:17nationals and that this was meticulously planned and
02:21intentional and
02:23Even though their own researchers who came here to Israel and also talked to eyewitnesses and experts
02:30Though they didn't go in-depth on the issue of sexual violence
02:35the Human Rights Watch report does
02:38Defer to the conclusions of the UN report which said that there was reasonable grounds to assume that Hamas
02:45Carried out attacks of sexual and gender-based violence including rape
02:51Immunization
02:53What's been the response in Israel on this?
02:57Well, listen Human Rights Watch is usually putting out very negative and critical reports on Israel
03:03which are often embraced by the civil rights groups here, but
03:07You know slammed by the government and the government has even at times not allowed Human Rights Watch
03:15their
03:16key leaders into Israel, but the report is being welcomed
03:22because you know it is seen as
03:25You know another
03:27you know another
03:30In-depth report that documents Hamas's crimes on October 7th
03:35Sadly we know that just nine months after this ghastly attack and after Hamas actually
03:42Documented so much of it their own members with video and pictures
03:46There is a lot of denial about what happened on October 7. It wasn't that bad
03:52Israelis made up the reports of you know
03:55You know burning people killing children
03:59Raping women, you know, it's all kind of lies. They just took some soldiers, right?
04:04So it is important that an organization a global human rights organization like Human Rights Watch puts out this report
04:12Just as you say nine and a half months on where are we now on?
04:18Negotiations for an exchange of hostages for prisoners nearly nine and a half months on there's still quite a lot of division
04:26Just within the Israeli government on how to handle any possible
04:30Truce and Netanyahu off to the u.s. Next week. Can you give us an idea of where all that is?
04:36That's right. I mean there has long there long been divisions inside the Israeli government inside the war cabinet proceedings
04:45about you know whether to stop the fighting and
04:48Make painful concessions to get out the hostages or continue the fighting
04:53What's different in the last few weeks is that those fights have now really gone into the public arena?
04:59And we have you know
05:02Former a war cabinet ministers like general Benny Gantz and the defense minister
05:07You have Galant who's still leading this war saying this is the moment. We've made a lot of
05:13Achievements on the battlefield. It's time to get out of those hostages. Remember, there's a hundred and sixteen eight of them
05:21American over 40 we know are dead, but that could leave still dozens alive
05:26That camp versus Netanyahu who appears
05:31Lately, at least in his public remarks to be more concerned with putting more pressure on Hamas getting more
05:38wins on the battlefield so to speak
05:41And thinking that he can break Hamas or get them to even make more concessions
05:48When all parties say Hamas now is showing flexibility and there's been a lot of
05:53Criticism from the families of the hostages who are saying how can you travel to?
05:59Washington in the middle of a war in the middle of a moment when negotiations are ongoing
06:04I mean, there's a first unconfirmed report just a short while ago. That is really
06:10Negotiators have landed in Cairo. So the families of the hostage are saying what are you doing going to Washington?
06:15What could possibly be more important than this deal to get out Israeli?
06:20civilians who frankly
06:22the state of Israel so
06:24Desperately failed on October 7th. So Netanyahu coming under a lot of criticism