October 7 was second deadliest foreign terror attack since 9/11, says new parliamentary report

The report reveals for the first time that 18 British citizens were killed in the attacks, more than any other foreign terror attack other than the Bali bombings in 2002 and 9/11 the year before.

The 18 British citizens killed by Hamas – Bernard Cowan, Nadav Popplewell, Roi Popplewell, Nathanel Young, Danny Darlington, Jake Marlowe, Aner Shapira, Dvorah ‘Debbie’ Abraham, Yonatan Rapoport, Lianne Clair Brisley [Sharabi], Noiya Sharabi, Yahel Sharabi, Benjamin "Benji" Trakeniski, Yannai Hetzroni-Heller, Liel Hetzroni-Heller, Rotem Kalderon, Yosef Malachi Guedalia, and Dor Hanan Shafir – have a special chapter dedicated to their memory.

The report’s author, award-winning historian Lord Roberts – who also serves as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and Visiting Professor at the War Studies Department at King’s College, London – said part of his reason for undertaking his research was to “to chronicle the events of October 7 with clarity and meticulous, fact-checking precision, to ensure it is never forgotten” and prevent the denial of Hamas’s atrocities, which he likened to a “more modern version of Holocaust denial”.

“Our report will hopefully permit people to see such denials and justifications for what they really are: a perversion of reason and rejection of human decency. We owe it to the victims and their grieving families to set down the ghastly, unvarnished truth about the sheer barbarism that Hamas and its terrorist allies unleashed”, he wrote.

He continued: “Hamas and its allies, both in the Middle East and equally shamefully in the West, have sought to deny the atrocities, despite the ironic fact that much of the evidence for the massacres derives come from film footage from cameras carried by the terrorists themselves – though of course there is also much more from many other sources, as this report delineates.”

Roberts used a wide-ranging variety of sources to carry out his research, including testimonies from survivors, first responders’ media reports, photo and video evidence, military releases, legal documents, medical reports, census information, and academic articles.

His report looks at every one of the 32 civilian communities, three cities, two music festivals and military facilities that were attacked by Hamas and other attackers from Gaza. It details the level of planning Hamas put into the attacks, how they carried out the attacks – 7,000 people took part in the large-scale, coordinated assault on 55 distinct locations – and chronicles Hamas’s deliberate killing of civilians.

The terrorist group’s youngest victim was Naama Abu Rashed who was shot while still in his mother’s womb and died 14 hours after doctors performed an emergency delivery.

The oldest victim was 92-year-old Holocaust survivor Moshe Ridler, who was killed when Hamas fired an RPG at his safe room.

Roberts writes that 73 per cent of all the victims of October 7 were civilians.

The report’s findings also reiterate those by the UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence, Pramila Patten on allegations of Conflict Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) and says that on October 7 “members of Palestinian armed groups crossed the Israeli border and committed acts of CRSV. These include acts of rape, gang rape, forced mutilation, sexualised torture, forced nudity, and posting sexualised images of victims on social media without consent.”

Roberts said he wanted to “lay down incontrovertible proof – for now and for the years to come – that nearly 1,200 innocent people were indeed murdered by Hamas and its allies, and very often in scenes of sadistic barbarism not seen in world history since the Rape of Nanjing in 1937.”

Celebrated historians welcomed the publication.

Simon Sebag Montefiore described it as an “important and essential record, chronicle and investigation of one of the most atrocious crimes of terroristic barbarity in modern history” while Niall Ferguson said it “meticulously documents the grisly fates of the 1,182 people killed by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad”.

He added: “In view of the speed and cynicism with which these organisations and their supporters sought to deny the massacre, the APPG has performed a vital service by providing such an irrefutable record of the terrorists' crimes of homicide, rape, kidnapping and torture.”

The UK-Israel APPG Co-Chairs – Labour’s Damien Egan MP and the Conservative Party’s Bob Blackman MP – described the report as “vital and comprehensive”.

“The atrocities committed by the Hamas-led attackers on that day represent one of the darkest chapters in modern history, not only for Israel but for the global Jewish community and all who stand against terror.”

They added: “The impact of October 7 is felt deeply in the United Kingdom, with 18 UK citizens amongst the victims. We stand in solidarity with all those affected and reaffirm our unwavering commitment to truth, justice, and the fight against terrorism in all its forms. This report will serve as an indispensable resource for policymakers, historians, and all those dedicated to ensuring that such horrors are never forgotten.”