section_path: Violence/Attacks on civilians
section_name: Attacks on civilians
paragraph_text: Attacks on civilians
  
  Hamas have committed massacres targeting Israeli civilians. Hamas's most deadly suicide bombing was an attack on a Netanya hotel on 27 March 2002, in which 30 people were killed and 140 were wounded. The attack has also been referred to as the Passover massacre since it took place on the first night of the Jewish festival of Passover at a Seder.
  
  Hamas has defended suicide attacks as a legitimate aspect of its asymmetric warfare against Israel. In 2003, according to Stephen Atkins, Hamas resumed suicide bombings in Israel as a retaliatory measure after the failure of peace talks and an Israeli campaign targeting members of the upper echelon of the Hamas leadership. but they are considered as crimes against humanity under international law. In a 2002 report, Human Rights Watch stated that Hamas leaders "should be held accountable" for "war crimes and crimes against humanity" committed by the al-Qassam Brigades.
  
  In 2008, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, offered that Hamas would attack only military targets if the IDF would stop causing the deaths of Palestinian civilians. Following a 19 June 2008, ceasefire, the al-Qassam Brigades ended its rocket attacks and arrested Fatah militants in Gaza who had continued sporadic rocket and mortar attacks against Israel. The al-Qassam Brigades resumed the attacks after the 4 November Israeli incursion into Gaza.
  
  During the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Hamas infiltrated homes, shot civilians en masse, and took scores of Israeli civilians and soldiers as hostages into Gaza. According to Human Rights Watch, the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate attacks, and taking of civilians as hostages amount to war crimes under international humanitarian law. During its October 2023 offensive against Israel, Hamas massacred 364 people at the Re'im music festival, while abucting others. During the same offensive, it also was reported that Hamas had massacred the population of the Kfar Aza kibbutz. About 10 percent of the residents of the Be'eri kibbutz were killed. Hamas militants attacked the Psyduck festival, that took place near kibutz Nir Oz, killing 17 Israeli partygoers. Video footage shows children being deliberately killed during the kibbutz attacks, as well as what appears to be an attempt to decapitate a living person using a garden hoe. Forensic teams who examined bodies of victims said many bodies showed signs of torture as well as sexual and gender-based violence, and testimonies to this effect were also collected by Israeli police. Haaretz later reported that forensic pathologists who examined bodies of the victims taken the Shura Base for identification found "no signs on any of those bodies attesting to sexual relations having taken place or of mutilation of genitalia." Not all bodies could be fully examined given the lack of forensic pathologists, and for some conclusions could not be drawn given their deteriorated state. Israeli forensic pathologists in charge of the process clarified later that all bodies had been examined, and some were disfigured or burned. Some of the testimonies were later proven to be false. Detailed reports by the UN and The Times concluded that Israel's claims about the scale and formally sanctioned, systematic nature of sexual assaults did not stand up to scrutiny.