In the early hours of October 7, 2023, the Idan family of Kibbutz Nahal Oz was shattered when Hamas terrorists infiltrated their home. As the family tried to take refuge in their safe room, the terrorists murdered their eldest daughter, Maayan, in front of her parents and siblings, and then abducted the father, Tzachi. The scene was broadcast live on social media, forcing the nation to witness their agonizing last moments.
At the same time, in Kibbutz Holit, 16-year-old Rotem Matias lay hiding under his mother’s lifeless body, texting his sisters the heartbreaking news: “Mom and Dad are dead. Sorry.”
In Kfar Aza, Roee Idan was killed while holding his 3-year-old daughter, Abigail, as his older children watched in horror. Their mother, Smadar, was also shot before their eyes. Afterward, the children hid in a closet, trapped with their mother’s body, unsure of their younger sister’s fate, who was later abducted into Gaza.
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These are just a few of the countless stories documented in a new report released on Tuesday, co-authored by Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy, founder of the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes Against Women and Children, and Dr. Michal Gilad and Dr. Ilya Rudyak. The report introduces the term “kinocide” to describe the systematic targeting and destruction of family units during the attack- an unprecedented atrocity that goes beyond typical warfare.
“A crime without a name for victims without a voice,” as Dr. Elkayam-Levy described it. “The perpetrators not only killed but deliberately sought to destroy the very foundation of human society: the family.”
“The hardest crimes to witness were those involving families,” Dr. Elkayam-Levy continued, “While the Hamas perpetrators celebrated their violence, chanting religious slogans and broadcasting their actions on social media, the terror was not confined to the immediate victims-it was amplified globally.”
“The use of social media was crucial in spreading the terror, inspiring similar acts of violence elsewhere,” Merav Israeli-Amarant, CEO of the Civil Commission, told Fox News Digital. She referred to this tactic as the “terror filter,” a term coined by legal scholar Tehila Schwartz Altshuler, explaining how the broadcasts were designed to radicalize and incite other terrorists.
As Elkayam-Levy and her team dug deeper, they realized that similar tactics have been documented in conflicts across the globe, from Argentina and Iraq to Syria, Sierra Leone and Myanmar. “We’ve been in contact with survivors of kinocide, including Yazidis, who have shared their experiences. The pain is universal. This has happened before, but it never had a name,” Dr. Elkayam-Levy said.
In collaboration with the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, the commission worked to identify these patterns of abuse and ensure that kinocide is recognized as a distinct crime. The new report, released after a year of research, includes interviews with survivors, visits to the sites where the atrocities took place, and an extensive review of evidence. The goal is to bring kinocide into international legal discourse, advocating for its urgent need to be recognized as a distinct crime.
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Professor Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice of Canada and International Chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, stated, “Silence in the face of such evil is not neutrality; it is complicity. Worse still, there has been denial, justification, and even the glorification of these heinous acts, underscoring the moral and legal imperative to act decisively against such crimes. The dangers of antisemitism are not just the oldest and most lethal of hatreds- they are also a presage of global evil, as evidenced by the events of October 7.”
“We need an international coalition to address this systematic targeting of families,” Elkayam-Levy said. “But international law has failed the survivors of October 7. The current legal frameworks do not adequately protect families in these kinds of attacks.”
The report, which has been endorsed by international law experts and human rights activists worldwide, highlights the urgent need for legal and social recognition of kinocide. However, despite the report’s widespread endorsement, Elkayam-Levy expressed her concern over the international community’s response.
As someone who faced the denial of prominent figures in the international human rights community in response to her last report on sexual violence on Oct. 7, she said, “We live in dark times when international law is weaponized against us (Israelis) in terrifying ways. As an international human rights scholar, I never imagined that we would live in a time when such abuse is directed at us. It really scares me.”
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