Despite detaining thousands of Palestinians without charge, Israel is yet to prosecute anyone for the October 7, 2023 attacks, amid stalled trials, political disputes and allegations of human rights abuses.
Two years ago, on October 7, thousands of militants from Gaza stormed more than a dozen Israeli communities, a music festival, and several military bases, killing more than 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. The United Nations has said that the assault involved war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
In the immediate aftermath, chaos gripped Israel. Although investigators found extensive evidence—often drawing from videos filmed by the attackers themselves—a proper collection of reliable evidence did not happen in many cases, due to the sheer scale of the attack.
Evidence lost in the chaos
Many bodies were buried without proper forensic examination, ballistic analysis was not feasible in certain cases, and several survivors took off before giving formal statements. Overwhelmed by the magnitude of the case, security officials often fell short of dealing properly with the unprecedented situation.
According to records verified by the New York Times, hundreds of Palestinians were detained on suspicion of direct involvement, with dozens arrested in or near Israeli territory around the time of the attack.
Thousands detained, few charged
Some 200 of these detainees remain in custody. Israel has also imprisoned roughly 2,700 other Palestinians captured in Gaza since the attack, suspected of affiliation with Hamas or other militant groups, but not necessarily direct participants. Many of Hamas’ senior figures in Gaza believed to have planned the assault have been killed in Israeli strikes.
The delays in prosecution have multiple causes, including the compromised state of evidence and the limitations of the ordinary criminal justice system. Some Israeli security agencies initially objected to moving the cases forward during the war. There are also concerns that trials could expose failures by the government and military or complicate hostage negotiations.
Rights groups and Palestinian families, meanwhile, accuse Israel of systematically violating detainees’ rights by holding them without charges or trial, often in harsh conditions with limited access to legal counsel.
Sweeping gag orders keep most details hidden, and many detainees have no public record of their imprisonment. All 2,700 Palestinians detained in Gaza are classified under Israeli law as “unlawful combatants”, a designation that allows indefinite detention without trial and is not recognised under international law.
On international law, war crimes, and human rights violations
Human rights monitors say the scale of detention is unprecedented. Amnesty International reports that administrative detention in the West Bank rose from about 1,300 cases in early October 2023 to over 2,000 within a month.
The organisation has documented accounts of detainees being beaten, kept in stress positions, deprived of sleep and food, humiliated, and in some cases threatened with sexual violence. There are credible reports of enforced disappearances, with families given no information about loved ones’ whereabouts.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has published 55 testimonies from former prisoners in a report. These accounts describe routine beatings, sexual abuse, starvation, denial of medical care and prolonged shackling. The group concluded that detention facilities degrade and break detainees physically and mentally.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has found that practices like arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and mass forced displacement constitute war crimes and, in some cases, crimes against humanity. It said sexual and gender-based violence appeared to form part of “standard operating procedures” in certain facilities.
Custodial conditions
Major news agencies have also corroborated allegations of abuse.
Reuters reported that at least 56 Palestinians have died in custody since the attack. Former detainees described prolonged restraint, beatings and deprivation of food and sleep.
The Associated Press highlighted the death of a 17-year-old boy who had been held for six months without charge, and reported that ill-treatment continued even after Israel’s Supreme Court ordered improvements to prison conditions.
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Individual stories illustrate the human toll. The Guardian reported the case of a Gazan nurse detained for more than a year without charge, who was not told that his family had been killed in the war.
The Washington Post interviewed about 1,000 Palestinians freed in a ceasefire deal, many of whom described systematic humiliation, beatings, denial of legal representation and lasting psychological trauma.
The Israeli military says interrogations are conducted in accordance with the law. In February this year, however, the IDF charged five of its soldiers with abusing a detainee at a base where thousands of Gazans had been held earlier in the war.
Justice being a distant prospect
Political debate in Israel over how to prosecute suspects has intensified. In late May, the Knesset passed an initial vote to create a special tribunal to try those accused of direct involvement in the attack.
The bill, co-authored by coalition lawmaker Simcha Rothman and opposition member Tatiana Malinovsky, has proposed a panel of 15 judges empowered to override parts of the ordinary criminal system and to bring genocide charges, which carry the death penalty under Israeli law.
The proposal mirrors special courts set up in other countries—such as American military commissions for Al Qaeda suspects following the 9/11 attacks—though international law experts often criticise such bodies for eroding legal standards.
The tribunal bill still requires several more votes, making it unlikely that trials will start before next year.
Last month, lawmakers extended emergency provisions allowing ongoing detention of suspects without trial until at least January.
Meanwhile, under the terms of a previous ceasefire, Israel released about 1,000 detainees to Gaza, along with women and minors held during the war. For the hundreds still in custody, the prospect of a trial remains distant.