Thread by @orenbarsky

Alright, ready for this?

Here’s a quick thread with highlights from The 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report—also known as The Roberts Report.

It’s the most comprehensive document published to date on the events of October 7, 2023, detailing thousands of incidents from that day.

The report was compiled by a commission led by Lord Andrew Roberts of Belgravia—a historian and member of the UK House of Lords.

Its members included Lords, Barons, and MPs from across the British political spectrum.

“We added nothing that wasn’t proven. The horror needs no exaggeration.”

- Lord Roberts, Chair of the Commission

In this thread, I’ll share key excerpts from the report, divided into a few categories:

🔹 The numbers behind the barbaric attack

🔹 Selected quotes from Hamas terrorists during the assault—taken from Hamas’s own materials: GoPro footage, audio recordings, live streams, and social media posts

🔹 Some of the most extreme atrocities committed that day

🔹 Powerful testimony from survivors

No drama. No exaggeration. Just the facts.

Let’s start with the numbers:
👇

The Numbers Behind the October 7 Attack – According to The Roberts Report

📍 Infiltration & Assault

• Approx. 3,800 Hamas fighters from the elite Nukhba unit crossed into Israel

• Another 2,200 armed militants from other Palestinian factions joined the attack

• 119 breaches were made in the border fence

• 32 rural communities and 3 cities were attacked

• 15 IDF military bases came under assault

📍 Casualties & Victims

• 1,182 people were killed

• Over 4,000 injured

• 251 hostages taken – including 210 living and 41 bodies

• 863 civilians killed – nearly 73% of the total

• 319 security personnel killed – approx. 27%

• Among the dead: 316 women and children

• 49% of the living hostages were women and children

• Victims included citizens from 44 different countries

📍 Rocket Fire

• 3,873 rockets launched on October 7 alone

• 987 more rockets fired in the following days

These aren’t just numbers. They’re the outline of one of the deadliest terror attacks in modern history.

Lets move to some quotes and recordings cited in the report—raw, direct, and impossible to ignore.

👇

📞 Phone call from a Hamas terrorist to his father – using the phone of a murdered Israeli woman:

"Hello Baba, I am speaking with you from Mefalsim.
Open your WhatsApp, tell Wiam. Look at all the dead
bodies. See how many I killed myself, Baba.

Your son killed Jews! Here, I’m inside Mefalsim, Baba. I am speaking to you from a Jewish lady’s phone. I killed her and I killed her husband. I killed ten myself, Baba. Ten!.

Ten with my owns hands. Baba, open your WhatsApp
and see how many I killed. Open up, I’ll call on
WhatsApp. Tell Wiam, come on.”

Here are a few more taken from the bodycam footage of Hamas terrorists and victim's phones :

📍The Murder of Adi Vital-Kaplon – Kibbutz Holit

During the infiltration of Kibbutz Holit, Hamas terrorists were filmed entering the home of Adi Vital-Kaplon. She tried to shield her 4-year-old son and her 3-month-old baby.

After murdering her, the terrorists filmed themselves placing shoes on the baby’s tiny feet and rocking the cradle where he lay. The video was later uploaded to Hamas propaganda channels.

📍 The Arava-Elkayam Family – Kibbutz Nahal Oz

At the home of the Arava-Elkayam family in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad broke in. Noam Elkayam, 46, was shot in the leg.

The attackers used his phone to livestream an interrogation of the entire family on Facebook. On camera were his partner, Dikla Arava (51), his daughters Dafna (15) and Ella (8), and his stepson Tomer (17). Later, the terrorists forced Tomer—at gunpoint—to knock on neighbors’ doors and lure them outside, all while continuing the live broadcast.

Tomer was later murdered, and his body was found outside the kibbutz.

📍 The Killing of Joshua Molle – Tanzanian Student, Nahal Oz

Joshua Molle, a 21-year-old student from Tanzania, was brutally attacked by militants from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and the National Resistance Brigades.

In the first video, he is seen with his hands raised, his face bloodied, surrounded by six attackers who beat him and scream at him.

A second video, filmed on a terrorist’s bodycam, shows Molle lying on the ground, bleeding from stab wounds to his abdomen. One terrorist stands over him holding a blood-stained knife. Another stomps on his chest.

📍 The Murder of Bracha Levinson – Kibbutz Nir Oz

At Kibbutz Nir Oz, militants broke into the home of 74-year-old Bracha Levinson. Her family, who had been in contact with her via text messages, learned of her death not through official channels—but through a Facebook post published from her own account.

The post was a video showing Levinson lying lifeless on her living room floor, in a pool of blood, surrounded by armed men shouting in the background. The footage had been uploaded by her killers.

The Roberts Report is filled with countless documented materials—taken directly from Hamas bodycams, audio recordings, and videos captured on the phones of their victims.

Many of these were later uploaded by Hamas operatives and other Palestinian users to social media platforms, especially Telegram.

Let’s move on to some of the most extreme and horrifying cases documented in the report—if such a distinction can even be made.
👇

Some of the Most Horrific Atrocities – as Documented in The Roberts Report

(If such a distinction is even possible)

📍 Burned Alive, Embracing One Another

Charred bodies were found tightly bound together—an Israeli mother and child tied with metal wire and burned alive. Medical evidence confirmed they were still breathing during the fire, as soot was found in their airways.

📍 Beheadings Captured on Camera

A video from Kibbutz Nahal Oz shows a Gazan civilian attempting to behead a wounded Thai worker with a hoe. The victim was still alive but too injured to move.

Additional beheadings—some post-mortem—were documented and shared on Telegram. Several bodies were found with facial disfigurements and eyes gouged from their sockets.

📍A Soldier’s Body, Shown with a Fake Head

In one case, a murdered soldier was decapitated. But his family was not initially told; his body was presented with a mannequin head to spare them further trauma.

Only weeks later did they learn the truth, and the grave was reopened so the head could be buried alongside the rest of the body.

📍 Torture Using Electrical Cords

Many bodies were found bound with household electrical wires, tightly looped around the wrists. In some cases, the cords tore through the skin, and limbs were either crushed or severed.

📍 A Baby Severely Burned – Kibbutz Kfar Aza

The Golan family hid in their safe room as terrorists tried to smoke them out with a burning tire. When that failed, the attackers ignited a gas canister inside the house.

The mother suffered second- and third-degree burns over 60% of her body. The father sustained burns to 45%. Their infant daughter was burned over 30% of her body and remained in a coma for 8 days.

📍Gang Rape and Brutal Murders

At the Nova music festival, one survivor recounted a chilling scene: a red-haired woman was gang raped repeatedly. Each time she moved, one of her attackers stabbed her in the back.

Another case described a woman who was raped and then had her breasts sliced off with a box cutter.

“One continues to rape her, and the other throws her breast to someone else, and they play with it, throw it, and it falls on the road.”

📍 The Youngest Victim: A 14-Hour-Old Baby

Born on October 6, 2023, in the NICU at Soroka Hospital, the baby returned home with her parents to Kibbutz Bar’am just hours before the attack.

She was shot and killed while being held in her mother’s arms.

📍 The Oldest Victim: A 92-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor

She was murdered in her home by Hamas terrorists. Her body was only identified days later due to its condition.

Let’s close with a few quotes from survivor testimonies—raw, firsthand accounts that need no commentary. Just their words.

👇

Survivor testimonies:

📍Tali Biner
A surgical nurse who survived the Nova Festival by hiding in a caravan for seven hours. She described hearing prolonged screams of women being raped, and later confirmed her fears upon seeing the bodies of naked women with signs of sexual assault. Biner emphasized the unmistakable horror in the victims’ screams and also testified to the rape of male victims.

📍 Gad Liebersohn

While hiding in the forest after fleeing the festival, Liebersohn recounted hearing English-speaking girls screaming “Help,” “No,” and “Please.” He heard them cry, followed by gunshots and silence. He could hear girls being taken to pickup trucks, raped, and shot.

📍Ron Freger

Hid in a dry riverbed for four and a half hours. He heard a girl nearby screaming “they are raping me, help me,” followed by a gunshot to the head. His testimony was provided to The Open University.

📍Rami Shmuel
CEO of UNITY Festival Israel and Nova organizer. He returned to the festival site and found naked female bodies, some butchered. He testified about the scale of sexual violence committed in open fields near the safe zone.

📍 Elad Avraham

Security supervisor at the Nova Festival. Fought off attackers using a fallen officer’s weapon. After helping people escape, he returned to the scene and led an 8-man team in a firefight against 30 terrorists for 90 minutes.

📍 Elizabeth Chinsome Anwuku

She and her friends hid in a thicket west of the festival. “We heard people screaming, we saw people falling, we were between booms and gunshots, and we were trapped.” Footage she filmed captured relentless gunfire drawing closer.

📍 Halely

A 21-year-old woman who hid under a stage. She described the group being frozen in fear while gunshots grew louder. “People screaming, begging… and then bang, silence.” She later ran while bullets whizzed over her head, seeking shelter behind a tank.

📍Noam Ben David

An artist who, with her boyfriend David Newman, hid in a trash container. She described hearing Arabic and gunfire around them and watching other survivors call loved ones, begging for rescue.

These are just a tiny fraction of the countless harrowing testimonies included in The Roberts Report.

Let’s now look at some of the broader statements included in the report regarding the behavior and patterns of the attackers.
👇

📍Bodies Used as Trophies

Victims from the kibbutzim and the Nova festival were used as propaganda trophies. Militants posed with the bodies, often stripped and humiliated—especially women—filming and sharing the footage to degrade and dehumanize them.

📍Destroying Communities

Attackers also looted homes, set fire to buildings, and used incendiary weapons, leaving entire communities in ruins. Fires burned for days, and many victims were left unidentifiable.

📍Sexualized Torture by Fire

Women and girls were especially targeted during the attacks, with reports of gang rapes, sexual mutilation, and assaults—even on corpses.

Many female bodies were found partially or fully naked, hands bound, and shot—often in the head. This was especially prevalent at the Nova Festival.

Forensic analysis showed indications that gasoline was used to set victims’ genitals on fire, which was corroborated by a video of a female victim who was set on fire with gasoline from the waist down.

Finishing with final thoughts on the report for now👇

📍This Is Just a glimpse

What I’ve shared here is only a fraction of The Roberts Report - a document that’s impossible to fully absorb in a single thread.

It’s filled with overwhelming evidence: testimonies, footage, transcripts, and forensic findings.

All of it factual.

Nothing added. Nothing exaggerated.

This is a formal British report, 300+ pages authored by MPs and Lords from across the political spectrum.

It lays out - clearly and unflinchingly - what Hamas did: mass murder, rape, mutilation, and the burning of live infants. And they filmed themselves doing it.

Now it’s documented. In English. For the world to see.

As Lord Roberts, Chair of the Commission, writes:

“We added nothing that wasn’t proven. The horrors need no exaggeration.

Our aim is to establish a record - indisputable, now and for years to come - of the nearly 1,200 people murdered, often with a level of cruelty unseen since the Rape of Nanking.

Holocaust denial took decades. October 7 denial took hours .

The denial hasn’t only come from the Middle East. It has grown swiftly and boldly in the West.… As a non-Jew, I see it as a moral obligation to stop this new form of Holocaust denial - the denial of October 7. It’s the least we non-Jews owe the Jewish people."

So I want to thank the Commission - and Lord Roberts - for producing this historic and essential document.

And if you believe, like I do, that this must not be ignored - please share this thread.

Here’s the link to the full report for anyone who wants to read it in full:

bit.ly/41Sg3VI

This is the hardest thread I’ve ever written in my life.