AARON PATRICK: One of Israel’s great critics, Amnesty International, finally blames Hamas for October 7

Among its many enemies, Israel has long included Amnesty International, the human rights body founded in the 1960s to hold governments accountable for crimes.

In a departure from a long record of condemning the Jewish state, Amnesty this week finally offered Israel support in the struggle to determine who was to blame for the war that devastated the Gaza Strip.

The London-based organisation published a 173-page report on the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel by Hamas that concluded the terrorist group violated “international humanitarian law, war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

The conclusion may be a statement of the obvious. Hamas, which controlled the Gaza Strip, swarmed southern Israel that morning and conducted a killing spree that cost about 1200 people their lives, including at least 36 children.

But it is a significant development in the debate over what happened. Amnesty International is perceived to be controlled by progressive activists who are staunch opponents of Israel. In Australia the group has publicly associated itself with sacked ABC broadcaster Antoinette Lattouf, a prominent critic of Israel.

Last year Amnesty accused Israel of committing genocide through seeking to “physically destroy Palestinians in Gaza”. The declaration was a propaganda coup for anti-Israel activists and made it hard for governments around the world to back Israel in its war against Hamas.

This week’s Amnesty report makes it difficult for anti-Israel protestors and Hamas supporters to portray the Palestinians who attacked Israel on October 7 as soldiers engaged in legitimate warfare.

The report disputes Hamas’ claims it was not involved in the targeted killing, abduction or mistreatment of civilians, and that the Israeli army was mainly responsible for civilian deaths.

“Contrary to claims by Hamas leaders that their fighters only targeted military objectives, the overwhelming majority of those killed were civilians and most of the locations targeted were residential communities or other places in which civilians were gathered, namely two music festivals and a beach,” the report says.

“In the attacks documented by Amnesty International, the victims were generally residents of the civilian communities targeted, including, in some cases, members of the local emergency response squads, or festival-goers.“

The individual examples of murder described by Amnesty include a 17-year-old Or Taasa, who was at Zikim beach 3km north of Gaza when Palestinian fighters arrived on inflatable rubber boats.

Mr Taasa’s mother, Sabine, told Amnesty she spoke to him on the phone when he was hiding in a public toilet with friends. He was shot dead a few minutes later.

His 45-year-old father, a firefighter, was killed the same morning at the family home about 10km away. His nine-year-old brother lost an eye when their safe room was attacked with a grenade.

A popular pro-Israeli account on X, Mossad Commentary, posted the report under the headline: “Breaking: well two years later breaking”.

Characteristically, Hamas and the Israel government complained about the report.

Israeli accused Amnesty of bias and complained its report had taken two years to publish and excluded some of crimes committed during the invasion.

“Fortunately, the world does not need Amnesty International to recognise the truth of the sheer monstrosity of Hamas,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Hamas said the “flawed and unprofessional” report accepted the Israeli government’s false account of the invasion. The group blamed Israeli soldiers for the death of civilians during the assault.

The Australian Palestinian Action Network, which has expressed support for Hamas’s objectives, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One significant allegation Amnesty did not endorse was that Hamas carried out systematic sexual violence against young Israeli men and women.

The Dinah Project, an all-female group of Israeli legal and gender experts, accused Hamas in July of using sexual violence as “part of a deliberate genocidal strategy” during the invasion.

Its report was based on first-hand testimony from a survivor of an attempted rape and 15 former hostages, and other witnesses of sexual assaults.

Last year a United Nations mission said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that rape and gang rape took place on the day, and hostages were subjected to sexualised torture.

Amnesty said it “could not reach conclusions on the scope or scale of the sexual violence” or determine who was responsible.

The group’s investigation was hampered by a refusal by Israeli authorities to cooperate with the report and a reluctance by many survivors and witnesses to speak to Amnesty researchers following adverse publicity towards the group in Israel.

“More than two years later, victims of the attacks are still waiting for true justice and accountability,” Amnesty said.

“Neither Hamas’s political nor military leadership have publicly recognised or condemned the crimes committed.”