NAZA is about how Israel fought in Gaza. The IDF says the film does not give due weight to the attack that started the war. This page sets out what happened on 7 October 2023, using the findings of Human Rights Watch, the United Nations, a British parliamentary commission and the IDF's own inquiry.
In its response to the film, the IDF says this context is needed “to enable an uninformed viewer to understand the grave security threat Hamas posed to Israel”.
A building in Kibbutz Be'eri, 11 October 2023. Photo: Kobi Gideon, Government Press Office of Israel, CC BY-SA 3.0
The attack
5,500terrorists crossed from Gaza into Israel, according to the IDF inquiry
114breaches in the border fence
3,889rockets and mortars fired at Israel that day
The terrorists came through the fence, from the sea in seven boats and from the air on six paragliders, the IDF inquiry found. Human Rights Watch identified Hamas's military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and at least four other Palestinian armed groups among them.
They did not go only for army posts. Human Rights Watch documented attacks on 19 kibbutzim and 5 moshavim, the cities of Sderot and Ofakim, two music festivals and a beach party.
The dead and the abducted
1,195people killed, by Human Rights Watch's count
815of them civilians
251civilians and security personnel taken into Gaza as hostages
Counts differ slightly between sources. The 7 October Parliamentary Commission in Britain puts the dead at 1,182. It records victims from 44 nations, among them 17 British nationals killed.
Where it happened
Memorial inside a roadside shelter at the Nova festival site, September 2024. Photo: Shlomo Roded, PikiWiki Israel, CC BY 2.5
Nova music festivalMore than 370 people killed at an all-night dance festival near Kibbutz Re'im.
Kibbutz Be'eri103 civilians killed.
Kibbutz Kfar Aza62 civilians killed.
Kibbutz Nir Oz75 people abducted, and the bodies of 7 more taken into Gaza.
Nahal Oz army base50 soldiers killed, 15 of them unarmed female observers. 10 soldiers taken hostage.
Figures in this list are from the report of the 7 October Parliamentary Commission, a group of British parliamentarians chaired by the historian Lord Roberts.
What investigators concluded
Human Rights Watch, July 2024
“Killing civilians and taking hostages were central aims of the planned attack, not an afterthought, a plan gone awry, or isolated acts.”
The organisation concluded that the armed groups committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Its list includes attacks targeting civilians, willful killing of people in custody, sexual and gender-based violence, hostage-taking, mutilation of bodies, use of human shields and looting.
United Nations, March 2024
The mission found “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in multiple locations”.
The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Pramila Patten, named rape and gang rape in at least three places: the Nova festival site and its surroundings, Road 232 and Kibbutz Re'im. Her team also found “clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment has been committed against hostages”.
7 October Parliamentary Commission, United Kingdom
The terrorists recorded the killings themselves.
The commission reports that they used GoPro body cameras and mobile phones, and that Hamas and other groups uploaded videos and images in real time to platforms such as Telegram. It dates formal preparations for the attack to 2021.
Why this belongs next to the film
The IDF does not say October 7 settles every question about how the war was fought. Its response says the context is essential “not to balance the suffering of two sides”, but so that a viewer can understand the threat Israel faced and the reasons for its military operations against Hamas.
The film's specific claims about those operations, and the IDF's answer to each, are on the claim by claim page.
