Warning: This story contains graphic language that depicts sexual violence.
Cochav Elkayam‑Levy was sitting beside her father’s hospital bed, scrolling through videos most people could not bring themselves to watch.
In the hours after Hamas’Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, as images spread rapidly across Telegram and WhatsApp, the Israeli human rights lawyer began saving everything she saw, material that would later form the basis of a sweeping new report alleging that sexual violence was systematic and central to the assault.
The 300‑page investigation, released this week by the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women, Children and Families, draws on more than 430 testimonies and roughly 10,000 images and video clips. The report concludes that sexual and gender-based violence against women, men and children was “integral” to the attacks and, in some cases, continuedduring captivity in Gaza.
The commission, which Elkayam‑Levy led, documented accounts of gang rape, sexual torture, forced nudity and mutilation, as well as instances in which victims were assaulted in front of family members or filmed by attackers, the report says.
Researchers said they did not attempt to quantify the number of incidents, citing the scale of the attack, the number of people killed and the difficulty of verifying individual cases as survivors continue to come forward.
The findings are expected to intensify ongoing debate over how sexual violence tied to the war has been documented and scrutinized.
At the time, Elkayam‑Levy said, she felt torn between staying with her family and helping communities devastated in southern Israel. Instead, she turned to what she knew: documenting.
Friends urged her not to watch. She didn’t look away.
“I don’t think we have enough words to describe the hell that the hostages have endured,” she said.
The commission did not share the photos and videos in its report, Elkayam-Levy says, to protect victims and their families.
The commission hired forensic specialists to authenticate videos and other materials and use geolocation-supported datasets to ensure accuracy in its report. They cross referenced victims' stories with witness accounts.
It was more than collecting stories for files. “We identified the specific patterns of abuse that Hamas committed so we can share it with leaders and experts around the world,” Elkayam-Levy says.
The commission said the acts could constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal acts under international law. They are calling for prosecution of the crimes, with the evidentiary and legal foundation for an investigation. They also highlighted the need for gender-competent frameworks to ensure that women aren't marginalized or systems aren't biased to effectively address these crimes.
The report has been reviewed and endorsed by legal scholars and professors, tech experts and ambassadors from around the world.
“When people think of sexual abuse, they think of rape. It was more than that. It went beyond,” Elkayam Levy tells USA TODAY. “It was often inflicted in ways designed to amplify terror and humiliation.
Hamas has not issued a statement about the report. USA TODAY first reported in December 2023 thatHamas used sexual violencein the Oct. 7 attacks and while they held hostages. At the time of the investigation by USA TODAY, Hamas denied the accusations.
The report “creates a new reality for the victims, for all of us to move from questions of whether this happened to the far more important question of ‘What are we going to do about such extreme forms of violence?’” Elkayam-Levy says.
Calling on the United Nations to condemn the violence
Elkayam-Levy, 42, is a human rights lawyer and advocate for Israeli women. She often simultaneously collects information and speaks on behalf of women.
In the days after the Oct. 7 attacks, she said she watched in horror and guilt, safe with her husband and four children in their home with in Modi'in, between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. She wondered if she and her friends should serve food or bring clothes to families whose neighborhoods wereinvaded by Hamas.
Early reports of sexual violence during the attacks were met with skepticism in some quarters. Some early claims were also disputed or withdrawn, adding to the scrutiny surrounding the issue.
Hamas has said allegations of sexual abuse have been part of an attempt by Israel to distract from the war's death toll. The Hamas-run Gazan Health Ministry says70,000 people in Gazawere killed. About 1,200 people died in the initial Oct. 7 attack, the deadliest slaying of Jews since the Holocaust.
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The commission hopes its report will silence those who doubted survivors' stories, Elkayam-Levy says.
“We knew we had to make it such legally compelling. It had to be credible. It had to tell the stories of the witnesses in ways that they describe it,” she says.
In the month after the attacks, Elkayam-Levy remembers being surprised that the U.N. Women and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, both organizations she has worked with, didn’t immediately take a stand against the sexual violence.
She and the commission drafted letters to the United Nations among others, calling on them to condemn the violence. Soon, groups of women across the globe banded together to support them.
People often don’t believe women when they say they have been sexually abused. But this time, Elkayam-Levy says, it was institutions refusing to acknowledge it.
It took almost five months after the Oct. 7 attack for the U.N. Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict topublish a reportthat found sexual violence occurred and called for an investigation.
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'You hear the screams, and then you hear silence'
When the commission began, Elkayam-Levy didn’t know how long it would take or how many stories they would document.
She worked with trauma specialists and archivists to preserve the findings.
“People need to understand how sadistic and violent it was," she says.
She found herself overwhelmed and spent an afternoon crying after reviewing photographs from a morgue. “I took it day by day, and then month by month,” she says. "You could not look at this as the big project it was going to be."
She remembers drinking coffee and reading a book to her then 2-year-old son snuggled into her lap in the mornings and then afternoons at work reviewing videos of sexual assault.
She read accounts of victims. She watched videos that showed Hamas loading bodies and people into cars and trucks. She read witness testimonies of bodies found burned, mutilated or shot, including victims who were found naked or partially dressed and who sustained gunshot wounds to the face and genital area.
One woman who hid during the attack at a music festival described hearing multiple assaults, according to the report.
“You hear the screams, and then you hear silence," the account said, reacalling the moment gunfire followed.
At one point, Elkayam-Levy says, she wanted to give up. She was complaining, and "this woman, she was like a grandmother who scolded me and told me it is a privelege to listen to these stories and share them."
“Listening to testimonies and devastating stories of what happened, or what people saw and cannot recover and are struggling to rebuild their lives stays with you,” says Elkayam-Levy. “We can’t forget it.”
When the commission's report was finished, Elkayam-Levy says she felt exhausted in a way she struggled to put into words.
She says they continue to receive new information from victims who now are recounting what happened to them or what they witnessed.
When she is overwhelmed, she turns to the words of the families.
“The mother of hostage Romi Gonen told me how important this report is,” she says of the then 23-year-old who was kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7. Gonen says she was was sexually abused and humiliated before being released in January 2025. “Her mother said we have to continue to talk about these things and the reality of what happened on Oct. 7, and not erase the experience of what happened to her daughter.”
Laura Trujillo is a national columnist focusing on health and wellness. She is the author of "Stepping Back from the Ledge: A Daughter's Search for Truth and Renewal" and can be reached at ltrujillo@usatoday.com.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:From phone photos to a report exposing Hamas' sexual violence
