A UN report released on Monday found signs that sexual violence was committed in multiple locations during the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel and said that some hostages being held in the Gaza Strip had also been subjected to rape and sexual torture.

From late January to early February, the UN deployed a team of experts to Israel and the West Bank led by Pramila Patten, the secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict.

In their report, the experts said they had found “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence occurred during the Hamas-led incursion into Israel, including rape and gang rape in at least three locations: the Nova music festival site and the area around it, as well as Road 232 and Kibbutz Re’im.

“In most of these incidents, victims first subjected to rape were then killed, and at least two incidents relate to the rape of women’s corpses,” the report said.

The UN report, which also cited allegations that Palestinians detained by Israel have also been sexually abused, was issued three months after The New York Times published an extensive report on sexual violence during the Hamas-led attack, including several incidents along Road 232. Hamas leaders denied the accusations, and the UN report, noting the array of fighters who took part in the October 7 attack, said its experts could not determine who was responsible for the sexual assaults.

In their report, the UN experts cited indications of sexual violence that had not previously been widely reported, including the rape of a woman outside a bomb shelter at the entrance of Kibbutz Re’im. That incident was corroborated by witness testimony and digital material, the report said.

The experts said they had also found “a pattern of victims, mostly women, found fully or partially naked, bound, and shot across multiple locations”. Although the evidence was circumstantial, they said, the pattern could indicate some form of sexual violence and torture.

When it came to the hostages seized in Israel and taken to Gaza, the report offered a more conclusive finding.

It said it had found “clear and convincing information” based on firsthand accounts of released hostages that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, was inflicted against some women and children during their time in captivity. It also said there were reasonable grounds to believe that such abuse was taking place against the hostages still being held.

Israel welcomed the report for recognising “that the crimes were committed simultaneously in different locations and point to a pattern of rape, torture and sexual abuse,” a spokesperson for the foreign affairs ministry said.

The UN report said its experts could not verify the reports of sexual violence in Kibbutz Kfar Aza or Kibbutz Be’eri. But in both places, it said, circumstantial information — “notably the recurring pattern of female victims found undressed, bound, and shot”, in Kfar Aza, for example — indicated that sexual violence, including “potential sexualized torture,” may have occurred.

It said that two specific allegations of sexual violence in Kibbutz Be’eri that were widely repeated by the media, however, were “unfounded”.

First responders told the Times they had found bodies of women with signs of sexual assault at those two kibbutzim.