Israel to indict 22 Hamas terrorists for Nir Oz massacre in unprecedented legal case

The Southern District Prosecutor's Office has finalized indictments against 22 Hamas terrorists from the Nukhba Force, which participated in the massacre at Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. 

The indictments were made possible by new materials, documents, and visual evidence provided by IDF Military Intelligence and the Shin Bet, recovered in recent months from the Gaza Strip.

The prosecutor's office also asked the attorney general to advance nine new legislative proposals intended to enable the trials of the terrorists to be handled in a more streamlined way. 

The advancement of the charges has been hindered by certain technicalities of Israeli law, which have caused frustration for many of the victims’ families. 

Among the legislative proposals is one that would allow the trials to take place without the terrorists or the witnesses being physically present in the courtroom, a departure from current Israeli law. Another proposal seeks to address the issue of legal representation for the accused, as the National Public Defender’s Office has stated it has no intention of representing them.

Still another proposal involves the confidential nature of some of the evidence, which would normally be required to be handed over to the defense attorneys. The proposal would allow the sensitive information to be used in the trial without compromising the sources or means of gathering the intelligence.

According to a Ynet News report, Israeli prosecutors have also submitted a request to the United States, which is also involved in the effort, asking them not to file indictments against the terrorists before Israel does. The prosecutor's office intends to file a single indictment against the hundreds of terrorists involved, positioning it as a historic legal event. 

Much of the evidence gathered in the case – electronic documents, video, and photo materials – was obtained during the expansion of combat operations before the recent hostage-ceasefire, due to the seizure of computers and related media in Gaza. IDF Intelligence and the Shin Bet security agency are currently sorting through vast amounts of material and transferring the evidence to the police, which will then pass it to the prosecutor's office. 

A police source told Ynet, “There are detained terrorists about whom the Shin Bet was able to tell us that once it entered a specific area in Gaza, for example, Rafah, 'we will bring you the evidence against them' – and they indeed did. I can’t recall an instance where a criminal investigation and the filing of indictments were so influenced by the progress of active IDF combat operations.” 

In Israel, approximately 300 Palestinian terrorists are being detained who are defined as having been involved in the massacre to some degree. Some were arrested in Israeli territory around Oct. 7, while others were apprehended by IDF soldiers later, as troops advanced during the fighting in Gaza. 

These terrorists have not been approved for release in hostage deals because of the legal case being built against them. Another group of prisoners includes those who did not directly participate in the Oct. 7 massacre but held Israeli hostages captive in Gaza.

So far, no decision has been made whether to include them in the indictment or whether they will be eligible to be transferred in a future hostage-prisoner exchange agreement. 

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth (owned by Ynet) reported that the special investigation unit at Lahav 433 collected testimonies from over 1,700 massacre survivors and approximately 400 security personnel, as well as from the Shin Bet and the IDF’s Military Intelligence Directorate. These testimonies form a significant part of the evidence in the cases. The investigators will handle the matter as a single, unified case rather than as separate individual cases.

The prosecutor's office and the police refer to it as "Case 7/10," and the district prosecutor's office intends to file all the hundreds of indictments against the terrorists within the framework of this single indictment. Such a filing is unprecedented in Israeli legal history, and represents a historic event.