The U.N. envoy focusing on violence against women in conflict said in a new report Monday that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Hamas committed assault, torture, and other cruel and inhumane treatment of women during its surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

There are also “reasonable grounds to believe that such violence may be ongoing,” said Pramila Patten, who visited Israel and the West Bank from Jan. 29 to Feb. 14 with a nine-member team.

In the report, she said the team “found clear and convincing information” that some hostages have been subjected to the same forms of conflict-related violence including assault and torture.

Patten’s report said the team’s visit “was neither intended nor mandated to be investigative in nature.”

Team members held 33 meetings with Israeli institutions and conducted interview with 34 people including survivors and witnesses of the Oct. 7 attacks, released hostages, health providers and others.

Based on the information it gathered, Patten said, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related… violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including [assault] and gang [assault], in at least three locations.”

Across various locations, she said, the team found “that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head.”

At the Nova music festival and its surroundings, Patten said, “there are reasonable grounds to believe that multiple incidents of [such] violence took place with victims being subjected to [assault] and/or gang [assault] and then killed or killed while being [assaulted].”

On Road 232 — the road to leave the festival — “credible information based on witness accounts describe an incident of the [assault] of two women by armed elements,” Patten said. Other reported assaults couldn’t be verified during their time in Israel.

But she said “the mission team also found a pattern of bound naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down, in some cases tied to structures including trees and poles, along Road 232.”

Patten said that in Kibbutz Reim, the mission team verified the assault of a woman outside a bomb shelter and heard of other allegations of assault that could not yet be verified.

At Kibbutz Be’eri, Patten said, her team “was able to determine that at least two allegations of [such] violence widely repeated in the media, were unfounded due to either new superseding information or inconsistency in the facts gathered.”

These included a highly publicized allegation that a pregnant woman’s womb was reportedly ripped open before being killed with her fetus stabbed inside her, Patten said.

(AP)