Israel-Hamas War: 9 Israeli Soldiers Killed in Single Day, Underscoring War’s Cost

In the most deadly of Monday’s incidents, a truck full of explosives blew up in the Bureij area of central Gaza, during what Israeli authorities said was a military operation to destroy an underground rocket and explosives manufacturing facility. The blast killed six soldiers and injured at least eight others, including the “Fauda” actor Idan Amedi.

Although the exact cause of the explosion had not been determined by Tuesday evening, a preliminary investigation suggested that it was inadvertently caused by fire from an Israeli tank, said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military.

For safety reasons, most soldiers had been ordered to leave the site where a small crew of combat engineers was preparing the explosives, Admiral Hagari said, and a tank was stationed nearby to secure the area and provide cover. Then the tank identified what was thought to be a threat.

“The tank opened fire at the threat, and in a tragic outcome, struck an electricity pole nearby, knocking it over and igniting the explosives,” Admiral Hagari said.

According to The Times of Israel, the army was leading journalists on a tour of a Hamas rocket manufacturing plant not far from where the explosion occurred. A reporter with The Times of Israel said he heard the blast and saw an explosion burst through the air, capturing it on film.

The three other soldiers killed on Monday died in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, the army said, describing operations there as troops destroying dozens of tunnel shafts and underground “terrorist infrastructure.” One soldier was killed in fighting and two were killed by anti-tank fire, the army said.

Israel said its military was consolidating its hold on the region, but that heavy clashes ensued after dozens of Hamas gunmen emerged from underground tunnels as Israeli troops approached. The gunmen were met with gunfire and killed, the army said.

The army said its troops in Khan Younis had discovered “terrorist infrastructure” inside the Islamic University in Gaza, including caches of ammunition including AK-47 rifles, cartridges and ammunition as well as safes containing what it called “terror funds.” In searches of nearby areas, the military said it found storage facilities for weapons containing roughly 100 mortar shells, ready-to-use explosives, grenades, combat equipment and maps used by Hamas.

Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.

Six soldiers were killed in the truck explosion and eight were wounded, including Mr. Amedi, the Israeli military said. Although the exact cause of the explosion had not been determined by Tuesday evening, a preliminary investigation suggested that it was inadvertently caused by fire from an Israeli tank, said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military.

For safety reasons, most soldiers had been ordered to leave the site where a small crew of combat engineers was preparing the explosives, Admiral Hagari said, and a tank was stationed nearby to secure the area and provide cover. Then the tank identified what was thought to be a threat.

“The tank opened fire at the threat, and in a tragic outcome, struck an electricity pole nearby, knocking it over and igniting the explosives,” Admiral Hagari said.

In “Fauda,” which has aired for four seasons on Netflix, Mr. Amedi plays Sagi Tzur, a newcomer to an elite Israeli counterterrorism unit that goes undercover into the occupied Palestinian territories, using the fighters’ fluency in Arabic and familiarity with local culture to blend in and hunt down terrorists.

As Israel launched a full-scale war in Gaza in response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas, the show’s depiction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gained urgency and other cast and crew members and their family members were called up to fight. In November, a producer on the show, Matan Meir, 38, was killed in a booby-trapped tunnel shaft near a mosque in northern Gaza.

Mr. Amedi rose to fame in 2010 after appearing on the popular Israeli TV show “A Star Is Born,” performing his song, “The Pain of Warriors,” which became an instant hit.

The song is written as a letter from a soldier on the front line to his lover, and reveals how much he has been keeping from her, “all the nightmares, the screams and blood on the uniform.”

Mr. Amedi has served as a reservist since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel. At the time, he wrote on his Instagram account that he would give up performing or singing for a year in order to remain in combat, saying the Israeli military needed to take action to protect Israelis in the south and the north, where cross-border attacks with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have escalated.

“Anything other than the elimination of Hamas in Gaza and the uprooting of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon poses an immediate danger to our children,” he wrote.

Another video posted to his Instagram account shows Mr. Amedi, who was serving in a combat engineering unit, counting down before exploding a target and dedicating it to Oct. 7 victims and two comrades killed in combat. “We will avenge their blood,” he says in the video.

Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.

Mr. Blinken’s comments were a reference to his assertion on Monday night, after talks at a Saudi royal camp in the desert, that Saudi Arabia and other countries remained interested in eventually building normal diplomatic relations with Israel despite the destruction in Gaza. But Arab leaders insist Israel must end the Gaza war first and work toward a Palestinian state, Mr. Blinken said — a position at odds with the Israeli government.

A senior Saudi official made similar points on Tuesday, in the strongest signal since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks and the start of the war that Riyadh remains open to talks of normalization, as long as Israel takes concrete steps that would benefit Palestinians.

In an interview with the BBC, Prince Khalid bin Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain, said that the kingdom’s talks with the United States about normalization had revolved around an endpoint that “included nothing less than an independent state of Palestine.”

“While we still — going forward even after Oct. 7 — believe in normalization, it does not come at the cost of the Palestinian people,” Prince Khalid said.

On Tuesday night, after meetings with a range of Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the Israeli war cabinet, Mr. Blinken said at a news conference that Israel’s integration into the region was not a substitute for a “political horizon for Palestinians and ultimately a Palestinian state.”

“On the contrary, that piece has to be a part of any integration efforts, any normalization efforts,” he added. “That was also very clear in my conversations during the course of this trip, including in Saudi Arabia.”

What Mr. Blinken left unspoken was the utter reversal that would be required by the Israeli government, which is now controlled by a right-wing coalition. It has opposed Palestinian statehood and also made it an ever-dimmer prospect by expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, undermining the Palestinian Authority there and taking steps that have helped Hamas retain control of Gaza.

— Edward Wong and Vivian Nereim Edward Wong reported from Tel Aviv while traveling with the U.S. secretary of state, and Vivian Nereim reported from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Instead, they have stressed that Israel and the United States must implement a cease-fire, and then take steps toward a goal Arab states have pursued for decades: a serious pathway toward creating a Palestinian state.

“Without a stable, independent sovereign nation for the Palestinians, nothing else matters, because it will not come up with a long-term solution for the conflict that we’re seeing,” Prince Khalid bin Bandar, the kingdom’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, told the BBC on Tuesday.

And on Sunday, during a news conference with Mr. Blinken in Qatar, Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said, “Gaza is part of Palestinian occupied territory, which needs to be under Palestinian rule and leadership.” He added, “There is no peace in the region without a comprehensive and just settlement.”

Mr. Blinken, who since beginning his latest diplomatic mission on Friday has visited Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Saudi Arabia and Israel, has also stressed the importance of a pathway toward a Palestinian state.

Officially, Arab governments have mostly dismissed the notion that they could participate in postwar planning before a cease-fire, arguing that would be akin to helping Israel clean up its mess. And they are reluctant to be seen participating in Israeli visions for Gaza’s future.

Mahmoud al-Habbash, a close adviser to the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that recent high-level meetings held by Mr. Abbas were narrowly focused on ending the war and addressing humanitarian concerns. He forcefully denied that they had touched on Gaza’s future.

“All of these meetings, consultations, and efforts are aiming to cease the aggression,” he said.

But behind the scenes, Arab officials have engaged in more pragmatic discussions, in which they assert that the Palestinian Authority — which had long pursued a Palestinian state while being sidelined by successive Israeli governments — is the natural candidate to govern postwar Gaza. That stance has not changed despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu all but ruling out any governing role for the Palestinian Authority in Gaza.

On Monday, when Mr. Abbas met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, it was partly to coordinate positions on Gaza, a Palestinian official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The official noted that Mr. Abbas was pressing for a united Arab position that supports a solution to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather than dealing with Gaza in isolation.

And on Wednesday, Mr. Abbas plans to travel to Jordan to participate in a summit with Mr. Sisi and King Abdullah of Jordan to discuss the situation in Gaza, Jordan’s state news agency reported.

Mr. Abbas also hopes that a five-member committee — including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinians — will convene in the future to further coordinate diplomatic efforts, the Palestinian official said.

“What’s taking place is consensus-building on the different pathways to the day after,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House, a London-based research organization, referring to how Gaza will be governed when fighting ends.

Arab countries themselves have different views about what a future government in Gaza should look like, and how capable the Palestinian Authority is of taking over the enclave. Before the war, Gaza had been ruled for years by Hamas, the armed group that carried out the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.

Palestinian analysts say that the Palestinian Authority’s ability to govern Gaza would hinge on achieving unity with Hamas, which they predicted would remain a critical part of Palestinian politics following the war — though Israel has repeatedly said it will not stop fighting till Hamas is destroyed.

In 2005, when Israel withdrew all its troops and citizens from Gaza, it handed over power there to the Palestinian Authority. But Fatah, the political faction that controls the Palestinian Authority, lost a legislative election the next year to Hamas. In 2007, Hamas seized power in Gaza in a short and brutal civil war, dividing the Palestinians not only territorially, but politically.

“Abbas and the Palestinian Authority want to bring Gaza back under their administration — they believe the war has created a major opportunity for them,” said Jehad Harb, a Ramallah-based analyst. “But without reconciling with Hamas, they will struggle to govern there. Hamas is a powerful force that will remain in Gaza.”

For some Arab states, mixed messaging on Gaza’s future “reflects their fluid thinking, and for others, the desperation of choices,” said Bader Al-Saif, a professor at Kuwait University.

“There are no easy options there,” he said.

Arab public opinion — deeply hostile toward Israel and the United States, especially since the war began — is important, Mr. Al-Saif added.

“Any day after scenario that doesn’t meet the masses’ quest for dignity and justice for Palestinians will eventually bite the different states of the region,” he said. “I’d keep that in mind if I were a policymaker.”

But after those comments were published on Monday, Israeli leaders sought to reassure the Israeli public that Israel remained committed to a long-term war in Gaza to destroy Hamas, even as its military tactics were shifting.

Analysts said the messages are not incompatible: The pace of a war can ebb without the conflict ending entirely. But they said they reflected the Israeli government’s effort to placate an international audience in the short term in order to pursue its goals over the long term.

On Monday, the Israeli military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said in an interview with The New York Times that the war had entered a new phase, with Israel drawing down its troops, focusing on southern regions of Gaza and decreasing the number of airstrikes. Hours earlier, Yoav Gallant, the defense minister, had told The Wall Street Journal that Israel would soon transition from “intense maneuvering” toward “different types of special operations.”

Then, in his daily Hebrew-language press briefing on Monday night, Admiral Hagari responded to a question about his interview with The Times by saying that the goal of dismantling Hamas remained in place, and that the “semantics” of whether the war had entered a new phase “doesn’t serve the Israeli public.”

Separately, the Israeli news media reported that Mr. Gallant had told fellow right-wing lawmakers, in a closed-door meeting, that the war would continue “for many more months,” and for that to happen, Israel needed a “margin for international maneuver.” Mr. Gallant’s office confirmed the remarks.

The comments to international news media also appeared to be an effort to address calls from the United States, Israel’s strongest ally, to ease the fighting, and they came hours before the U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, landed in Tel Aviv for discussions about the war. The Biden administration has been under pressure to scale back its support for Israel, and Mr. Blinken has previously called on Israel to use more precision in its strikes on Gaza.

Writing in Israel Hayom, a right-wing daily newspaper, Yoav Limor, a military commentator, said: “The Israeli government locked itself into conflicting commitments: the commitments that it made to the Israeli public, saying there would be no time limit and the war would continue for as long as necessary until victory; and the commitments it made to the world, first and foremost to the administration in Washington, saying that the war was now transitioning to a new, lower-intensity stage of the war.”

While a majority of Israelis want to see Hamas destroyed after its brutal Oct. 7 raid on Israel, international public opinion has been turning against Israel. More than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its offensive, according to the Gazan health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Adding to pressure on Israel is a hearing scheduled for this week at the International Court of Justice in a case, brought by South Africa, that accuses Israel of attempting a genocide against Palestinians. Israeli officials have strongly denied the allegation.

“With all these put together, Israel wants to put on an image of, ‘OK, we’ve taken the criticism, we’ve integrated and incorporated the remarks,’” Alon Pinkas, Israel’s former consul-general in New York and a political commentator, said in an interview.

By contrast, he said, the Israeli mainstream does not want to hear that the war is winding down while Hamas remains active in much of Gaza. Israelis, he added, “understand that very little has been achieved, if the idea was to eliminate or eradicate or obliterate or annihilate or topple Hamas.”

A U.N. school in central Gaza sheltering people displaced by the fighting was also hit by shelling, along with residential buildings, resulting in an unconfirmed number of deaths and injuries, the U.N. said on Tuesday.

Four people were also injured, including a 5-year-old girl who was left in critical condition, after a shell “broke through a wall” at a Doctors Without Borders shelter in Khan Younis that was housing more than 100 staff members and their families, the aid group said on Monday.

“We’re trying to understand what happened,” the organization said on social media. “MSF had informed Israeli forces that this was an MSF shelter,” it said, using the initials of its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières. “We did not receive evacuation orders.”

The World Health Organization, a U.N. agency, expressed alarm on Tuesday at the Gazan health system’s loss of capacity, as Israeli evacuation notices and heavy bombardments force doctors and nurses to flee.

“We are seeing a humanitarian catastrophe unfold before our eyes across the Gaza Strip,” Sean Casey, the W.H.O. emergency medical team coordinator in Gaza, told reporters. “We are seeing the health system collapse at a very rapid pace.”

On visits on Sunday to Al Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza and Nasser Hospital in the south, Mr. Casey said he found that 70 percent of the medical staff had fled in recent days because of Israeli orders to evacuate and intense fighting in the area. That left a handful of medical staff to treat large numbers of seriously injured people, including many children. Around 600 patients left Al Aqsa Hospital on Sunday, moving to already overcrowded hospitals in the south.

“We cannot lose these health facilities — they absolutely must be protected,” he added, referring to the Aqsa, Nasser and European hospitals. “This is the last line of secondary and tertiary health care that Gaza has. From the north to the south, it has been dropping, hospital after hospital.”

Three weeks after a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for accelerated deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the U.N. said that access for aid groups continues to shrink because of the fighting, a lack of corridors for safe movement of aid trucks and a lack of clearance from Israel to proceed.

“We have far fewer areas in the Gaza Strip where we can access, where we can deliver supplies, where we can take emergency medical teams,” Mr. Casey said. “We have the supplies here, we have the trucks loaded, the people who are ready to go into the hospitals. We cannot move.”

The W.H.O. said that in the past two weeks it had canceled six planned missions to northern Gaza because it did not receive the clearances needed to proceed.

“We see evacuation orders in new areas every couple of days,” Mr. Casey said. “We request coordination, we coordinate with parties to the conflict so that we can move safely, and those requests have consistently, for the past few days, been denied.”

“Every day we make a plan, every day we line up our convoys, we wait for clearance and we don’t get it,” he said, “and then we come back and do it again the next day.”

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the U.N.’s accusations. Israel has said that the militant group Hamas, which it aims to eliminate in Gaza, uses hospitals and other civilian infrastructure to hide fighters and weapons.

Bottles of nail polish, perfume and hair gel stood untouched on a shelf. A collection of fridge magnets decorated the frame of a mirror. Through a window, one could see laundry, hanging from a neighbor’s washing line, swaying in the gentle breeze.

But despite the trappings of home, the house now has a new function — as a makeshift Israeli military barracks.

Since Israeli ground forces recently fought their way into this part of central Gaza, a unit from the military’s 188th Brigade has taken over the building, using it as a dormitory, storeroom and lookout point.

On Monday, some soldiers were awaiting orders in the ground-floor living room, or standing watch on the terrace above. One bedroom was crowded with the soldiers’ backpacks and equipment.

The house’s walls were marred with Hebrew graffiti. “The people of Israel,” read one message, written in black spray paint.

The people of Gaza were nowhere in sight.

The house was emblematic of the ruined wasteland that two journalists for The New York Times witnessed on a three-hour journey with Israeli soldiers through Gaza on Monday morning.

“This is part of our war,” Mr. Katz said in response to a question about the attack. “We strike on Hezbollah’s people.”

The Radwan unit has taken the lead in Hezbollah’s long-running conflict with Israel and in cross-border attacks that have escalated in the three months that Israel and Hamas have been at war.

Hezbollah said that it had carried out a drone attack on Tuesday on the headquarters of Israel’s northern command at Safed in retaliation for the killing. The Israeli military said the attack had caused no casualties or damage.

A funeral for Mr. al-Tawil was held on Tuesday with mourners carrying his coffin during a funeral procession in Khirbet Selm, the village in southern Lebanon where he was killed. A Lebanese security official said that Israel fired rockets during the gathering and that one mourner had been killed.

Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report of the attack.

Hezbollah also said it had fired at the areas of Malkia and Yiftah in northern Israel on Tuesday. The Israeli military later said it was targeting the launch sites for the attacks, as well as a drone squad in southern Lebanon, and that its fighter jets had struck military hardware in the area of Kafr Kila.

Earlier Tuesday, Israel also killed three Hezbollah members in a strike on their vehicle in the southern Lebanese town of Ghandouriyeh.

Hezbollah has pledged support for Hamas, and in recent days, it has stepped up assaults on Israel in response to the killing last week of Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas leader, outside Beirut.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly declared in recent weeks that there are only two options for restoring calm in the conflict with Hezbollah: a diplomatic solution that would move the Radwan forces farther from the border; or, failing that, a major Israeli military offensive aimed at achieving the same goal.

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

Israel’s foreign minister appeared to say that Israel had been responsible for the strike that killed the Radwan force commander. Israeli officials have contended that the Radwan unit is focused on attacking northern Israel and is a legitimate target.

Why does Israel call the Radwan unit a threat?

Radwan has taken the lead in Hezbollah’s long-running conflict with Israel, and in the cross-border attacks that have escalated in the three months that Israel and Hamas have been at war. Israeli military analysts say that Radwan has adopted the mission of conquering the northern Israeli region of Galilee.

Hezbollah and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip along Israel’s south, share a patron in Iran. If Iran and its proxies were to make a serious effort to broaden the war, the Israel-Lebanon border would be the likeliest place to do it. And since Hamas mounted its bloody Oct. 7 assault on Israel, there have been fears that Hezbollah could attempt something similar.

“The Radwan force is dedicated to duplicating what happened on Oct. 7 in the south of Israel in the north,” Tamir Hayman, a retired general who led Israeli military intelligence until 2021, said in an interview. “For that exact reason, it’s unacceptable for Israel to allow its fighters to remain in the border area.”

Last spring, the Radwan force took part in a rare example of public military exercises by Hezbollah, displaying an expansive military arsenal and simulating an infiltration into Israeli territory. Slick propaganda videos produced by Hezbollah have showcased the group’s small unit tactics and live-fire drills, interspersed with threats to Israel.

Why are we hearing more about the Radwan unit now?

The Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas also led to intensified strikes and retaliations between Hezbollah and Israel, forcing tens of thousands of people on each side of the border to evacuate.

In northern Israel, officials and residents have piled pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protect them from Hezbollah and make it safe to return home.

“We need some kind of guarantee that there’s no danger to our citizens in the north,” General Hayman said.

What Israel had treated as a manageable threat it now describes as something more serious, and Israeli leaders have repeatedly cited the Radwan unit by name. In December, Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s national security adviser, told Israeli media that the country “can no longer accept Radwan force sitting on the border.”

On Sunday, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said that a “focus” of its actions in Lebanon was driving the Radwan force away from the border.

Israeli leaders have increasingly declared in recent weeks that there are only two options for restoring calm in the conflict: a diplomatic solution that would move the Radwan forces farther from the border, north of the Litani River, or a major Israeli military offensive aimed at achieving the same goal.

So far, U.S.-led efforts to secure a diplomatic solution have proved unsuccessful.

Where did the Radwan force come from?

The origins and makeup of the unit are murky.

The group took its name from the nom de guerre of its former leader, Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Syria in 2008. Under his command, the unit played a pivotal role in the abduction of Israeli soldiers in 2006 that led to the outbreak of the Second Lebanon War.

The unit, along with other elements of Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups, later took part in the battle against the Islamic State in Syria. But the fighting in the last three months has marked the Radwan force’s most active period against Israel since 2006.

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

Appearing before a parliamentary committee, Mr. Cameron did not give a clear answer when questioned on the official legal advice he has been given on Israel’s compliance with its international obligations. But when pressed repeatedly he said that he had concerns about whether the Israeli military had always acted in a proportionate way.

“If you’re asking: Am I worried that Israel has taken action that might be in breach of international law because this particular premises has been bombed or whatever? Yes of course I am worried about that,” Mr. Cameron said.

“Every day I look at what’s happened and ask questions about is this in line with international humanitarian law?” he added “Could the Israelis have done better to avoid civilian casualties? Of course I do that.”

Mr. Cameron’s comments come as Israel prepares to defend itself at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where South Africa has brought a case accusing it of committing genocide in its military campaign against Hamas. Israel has defended its conduct in the war, saying it has taken steps to limit civilian casualties.

Asked directly whether he had been advised of any Israeli breaches of international law, Mr. Cameron replied that “the short answer to that is no.” But he immediately qualified that statement by adding that the legal advice was complex and nuanced, and that he was unable to give a yes or no answer.

During the session, Mr. Cameron also said that two British hostages were being held by Hamas, but declined to give any more details.

The appearance was his first before elected lawmakers since Mr. Cameron, a former British prime minister who is a member of the unelected House of Lords, returned to government as foreign secretary in November of last year.

“The decision is absurd,” said Elad Asis, 31, the head of the university’s student union and a protest organizer. He added that the move and a possible backlash by Jewish students would “create a division between the Arab and Jewish community.”

The university takes pride in its status as a uniquely mixed institution where more than 40 percent of students are Arabs. Nearly two week ago, for the first time since the outbreak of the war, Jewish students — some of whom lost family on Oct. 7 or had fought in Gaza — again attended class with Arab students, some of whom had been targeted on social media or had family members who were killed in Gaza.

Many Arab students are on edge and the protest is exacerbating that anxiety, said Tala Hamady, 25, an Arab Israeli law student who is part of the Druze minority in Israel.

“No one wants to sit next to a terror supporter, neither Jews nor Arabs,” Ms. Hamady said, but she said she believed the suspended students deserved due process without the added noise of protests on campus.

Ms. Hamady said she found herself squeezed between the Jewish and Arab communities. She said she is an Arab who has relatives serving in the Israeli military in Gaza.

Still, “if I speak Arabic while walking by the protests, they won’t know that I have a cousin serving in Gaza,” Ms. Hamady said. She said she worried that the protesters would typecast her as a threat because she was Arab. As a result, she made a point of avoiding the protest and entering the university through a different entrance.

Ron Robin, the university’s president, said he had met the protesters in the morning to listen to them and to try to allay their concerns. He said that the university allowed the students to return to class to try to speed up the disciplinary review.

“It’s unavoidable, given the circumstances, that there will be incidents or sentiments that will increase tensions,” he said, but added that he hoped that faster disciplinary proceedings would help calm the situation.

— Adam Sella reporting from Haifa, Israel

In a statement, they called for “full accountability for the multitude of alleged crimes,” and urged all parties to agree to a cease-fire, abide by international law, and investigate any crimes alleged to have occurred during the fighting.

“These acts constitute gross violations of international law, amounting to war crimes which, given the number of victims and the extensive premeditation and planning of the attacks, may also qualify as crimes against humanity,” they said. “There are no circumstances that justify their perpetration.”

Israeli officials say about 1,200 people were killed and more than 240 taken hostage on Oct. 7. Investigators with Israel’s top national police unit, Lahav 433, have been gathering evidence of cases of sexual violence but have not specified a number. Hamas has denied the accusations of sexual violence.

Reacting to the experts’ statement on Monday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said on social media: “Harrowing. Hamas’ horrific acts of sexual violence must be immediately and unequivocally condemned.”

Accounts of sexual violence on Oct. 7 were shared in a presentation at U.N. headquarters in New York in early December. “Silence is complicity,” said Sheryl Sandberg, the former Meta executive, who helped organize the presentation. Hundreds of protesters outside accused the United Nations of holding a double standard on sexual violence, which the U.N. has acknowledged in many other conflicts. Some chanted: “Me too, unless you’re a Jew.”

The New York Times published a two-month investigation in late December, finding that the attacks against women were part of a pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7. The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appeared to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated.

Reporters interviewed witnesses who described seeing women raped and killed along a highway, reviewed photographs that showed a woman’s corpse with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin, and spoke with volunteer medics and Israeli soldiers who came across at least 24 bodies of women and girls in at least six houses, some mutilated, some tied up, and many naked and alone.

Three days after the Times investigation was published, Hamas said in a statement that the group’s leaders “categorically deny such allegations” and called it a part of Israel’s attempt to justify the killing of Palestinian civilians.

Hamas fighters’ “religion, values and culture” forbid such acts, and the short duration of the attack before the attackers withdrew to Gaza made the allegations implausible, the group said in the statement issued Dec 31. It said it would welcome any international inquiries into the allegations.

Victoria Kim contributed reporting.