Three men have been found guilty of an arson attack on a London warehouse linked to Ukraine on behalf of Russian mercenary group Wagner.

Jakeem Rose, 23, Ugnius Asmena, 20, Nii Mensah, 23, were found guilty at the Old Bailey of being recruited to set fire to the industrial unit which sent aid and internet satellite equipment.

The attack was orchestrated by Dylan Earl, 20, and Jake Reeves, 23, who had already admitted aggravated arson on behalf of the Wagner Group - which the UK government named as a proscribed terrorist group.

Around £1 million-worth of damage was caused in the arson attack on the warehouse in in Leyton, east London, on 20 March last year, the trial at the Old Bailey heard.

A fourth man, Paul English, 61, was found not guilty of being recruited to set fire to the warehouse and obtaining money from a foreign intelligence service.

Mensah and Rose were captured on CCTV and the livestreamed video as they set the warehouse on fire before they made off.

Eight fire engines were called to the Cromwell Industrial Estate after it broke out shortly before midnight on 20 March 2024.

On the night of the attack, the jury heard a lorry driver parked nearby had bravely but unsuccessfully attempted to put out the fire.

Earl is the first person to be convicted under the National Security Act, passed by parliament in 2023, to deal with the increased risk of hostile state activity.

The court heard he used the messaging app Telegram to communicate with the Wagner Group.

A fifth man, Ashton Evans was found guilty on Tuesday of one count of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts, but cleared on another.

A sixth man, Dmitrijus Paulauskas was found not guilty of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts.

The Southport murders were "one of the most egregious crimes in our country's history" the chairman of the public inquiry into the atrocity has said.

The inquiry will examine how the "deteriorating and deeply troubling behaviour" of Axel Rudakubana, who went on to "cause such devastation" on 29 July 2024, was dealt with by public bodies.

Alice Aguiar, nine; Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven and six-year-old Bebe King died while eight other children and two adults were seriously wounded during the attacks at a dance studio in the Merseyside town.

The first live hearings have now begun at Liverpool Town Hall, chaired by retired senior judge Sir Adrian Fulford.

Sir Adrian said he was committed to delivering "sensible and achievable" recommendations.

He told a council chamber packed with legal representatives, lawyers, the media and the public that "ordinary language simply fails to reflect the enormity of what [Rudakubana] did.

"None of the most powerful adjectives even begin to suffice.

"There are no words that adequately describe what occurred and I am not going to try, and then fail, to find them."

'Risk posed'

Sir Adrian said the inquiry, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in April, would involve two stages.

The first will analyse "the perpetrator's history and his dealings with all of the relevant agencies".

He continued: "We will identify the decisions that were made or not made, how information was shared and extent to which the risk he posed was addressed, along with any missed opportunities to prevent what occurred."

The second phase would involve looking at the "wider phenomenon of children and young people who are being drawn into extreme violence".

A few minutes after Sir Adrian began addressing the chamber, he asked all present to stand for a minute's silence in memory of Alice, Elsie and Bebe.

• 'No flowers' to mark year since Southport attack

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The cost of the state pension triple lock is forecast to be three times' higher by the end of the decade than its original estimate, according to the government's official forecaster.

The triple lock, which came into force in 2011, means that the state pension rises each year in line with either inflation, wage increases or 2.5% - whichever is highest.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) said the annual cost is estimated to reach £15.5bn by 2030.

Overall, the OBR said the UK's public finances were in a "relatively vulnerable position" owing to pressure from recent government U-turns on planned spending cuts.

The recent reversal of proposed the welfare bill, on top of restoring winter fuel payments for most claimants, have contributed to a continued rise in government debt, according to the report.

It said: "Efforts to put the UK's public finances on a more sustainable footing have met with only limited and temporary success in recent years in the aftermath of the shocks, debt has also continued to rise and borrowing remained elevated because governments have reversed plans to consolidate the public finances.

"Planned tax rises have been reversed, and, more significantly, planned spending reductions have been abandoned."

Spending on the state pension has steadily risen, the OBR said, because the triple lock and a growing number of people above the state pension age was contributing to costs.

It added: "Due to inflation and earnings volatility over its first two decades in operation, the triple lock has cost around three times more than initial expectations."

Pensioner protection

The UK's state pension is the second-largest item in the government budget after health.

In 2011, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition brought in the triple lock to ensure the value of the state pension was not overtaken by the increase in the cost of living or the incomes of working people.

Since then, the non-earnings-linked element of the lock has been triggered "in eight of the 13 years to date", the OBR pointed out.

That was because inflation "has turned out to be significantly more volatile" than expected.

In April 2025, the earnings link meant the state pension increased by 4.1%, making it worth:

• £230.25 a week for the full, new flat-rate state pension (for those who reached state pension age after April 2016) - a rise of £472 a year
• £176.45 a week for the full, old basic state pension (for those who reached state pension age before April 2016) - a rise of £363 a year

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the Labour government will keep the triple lock until the end of the current Parliament.

However, before and since that manifesto promise, there has been intense debate over the cost of the triple lock and whether it is justified.

Last week, the influential Institute for Fiscal Studies, an independent economic think-tank, suggested the triple lock be scrapped as part of a wider overhaul of pensions.

It argued that it should rise in line with prices, but the cost should be linked to a target level of economy-wide average earnings.

Pensioner groups say many older people face high living costs and need the protection of the triple lock to avoid them falling further into financial difficulty, especially because the amount actually paid was far from the most generous state pension in Europe.

Digital bank Monzo accepted customers claiming to live at 10 Downing Street, Buckingham Palace and even its own premises, an investigation has found.

A lack of address verification meant it failed to spot the "implausible" use of London landmarks on applications to open accounts.

Monzo was fined £21m by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for its failures regarding anti-financial crime measures.

The bank said the regulator's findings related to problems of more than three years ago and vast improvements had since been made to its systems.

The FCA's investigation, which has taken a number of years, found Monzo took on customers using using PO boxes, foreign addresses with UK postcodes or "obviously implausible UK addresses, such as well-known London landmarks".

They included home of the UK Prime Minister 10 Downing Street, the Royal residence Buckingham Palace and its own business premises.

The lack of verification meant it took on risky customers who were based outside of the UK, and illustrated "how lacking Monzo's financial crime controls were", the regulator said.

It was one of a number of areas in which it failed to mitigate the risk of financial crime.

Monzo had grown rapidly, with the number of customers increasing almost tenfold from around 600,000 in 2018 to over 5.8 million in 2022. Many were attracted by its claims to be a digital pioneer. It has no physical branches.

However, the FCA said that Monzo's financial crime controls failed to keep pace with its customer and product growth.

Therese Chambers, FCA joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, said that banks were a vital line of defence in the fight against financial crime.

"They must have the systems in place to prevent the flow of ill-gotten gains into the financial system," she said.

"Monzo fell far short of what we, and society, expect."

'In the past'

TS Anil, chief executive of Monzo, said the FCA's findings "draw a line under issues that have been resolved and are firmly in the past" as improvements had now been made.

The bank was fined for its inadequate anti-financial crime systems and controls between October 2018 and August 2020.

The FCA said it also repeatedly breached a requirement preventing it from opening accounts for high-risk customers between August 2020 and June 2022.

Mr Anil said that financial crime was an issue that affected the whole banking sector, but Monzo was "doing all that we can to stop it in its tracks".

An eight-year-old girl and the director of an all-girls' summer camp are among the victims of flash floods in Texas that have claimed at least 43 lives, including 15 children.

Officials say most of the victims have been identified, though the identities of six adults and a child remain unknown. Authorities have not yet released any names publicly.

Here's what we know so far about the victims.

Renee Smajstrla

Eight-year-old Renee Smajstrla was at Camp Mystic when flooding swept through the summer camp for girls, her uncle said in a Facebook post.

"Renee has been found and while not the outcome we prayed for, the social media outreach likely assisted the first responders in helping to identify her so quickly," wrote Shawn Salta, of Maryland.

"We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life, as evidenced by this picture from yesterday," he wrote. "She will forever be living her best life at Camp Mystic."

Camp Mystic, where 27 children are missing, is a nearly century-old Christian summer camp for girls on the banks of the Guadalupe River near Hunt, Texas.

Operated by generations of the same family since the 1930s, the camp's website bills itself as a place for girls to grow "spiritually" in a "wholesome" Christian atmosphere "to develop outstanding personal qualities and self-esteem".

Jane Ragsdale

Heart O' the Hills is another all-girls' camp that sits along the Guadalupe River, and it was right in the path of Friday's flood.

Jane Ragsdale, described as the "heart and soul" of Heart O'Hills, "did not make it", a post shared on the camp's official website said on Saturday.

Ragsdale, who started off as a camper then a counsellor, became the director and co-owner of the camp in 1976.

"We are mourning the loss of a woman who influenced countless lives and was the definition of strong and powerful," the camp website post said.

Heart O' the Hills wasn't in session and "most of those who were on camp at the time have been accounted for and are on high ground", the statement said.

"Access to the site is difficult, and authorities are primarily focused on locating the missing and preventing further loss of life and property".

Sarah Marsh

Sarah Marsh, a student at Cherokee Bend Elementary School in Texas, would have entered third grade in August.

She, too, was attending Camp Mystic when the floods struck, and reported as missing along with about two dozen other campers.

Her grandmother, Debbie Ford Marsh, took to Facebook on Friday asking for prayers. Just hours later she shared online that her granddaughter was among the girls killed.

"We will always feel blessed to have had this beautiful spunky ray of light in our lives. She will live on in our hearts forever!" Ms Ford Marsh wrote on Facebook.

In a post on Facebook, Alabama Senator Katie Britt said she's "heartbroken over the loss of Sarah Marsh, and we are keeping her family in our thoughts and prayers during this unimaginable time".

Lila Bonner

Nine-year-old Lila Bonner, a Dallas native was found dead after flooding near Camp Mystic, according to NBC News.

"In the midst of our unimaginable grief, we ask for privacy and are unable to confirm any details at this time," her family said in a statement to the news outlet.

"We ache with all who loved her and are praying endlessly."

The first report on the findings from an inquiry into the Post Office Horizon IT scandal has been published.

It reveals for the first time the full extent of the suffering of sub-postmasters and others who were affected by being wrongly accused of stealing money and false accounting, based on incorrect data.

Here are five things we now know as a result.

1. Impact on lives was 'disastrous'

The inquiry heard many harrowing experiences from sub-postmasters who were incorrectly accused of theft and false accounting.

The report outlines how the scale of suffering was even greater than thought until now.

There had already been stories of two sub-postmasters taking their own lives due to the Horizon scandal – Michael Mann and Martin Griffiths.

The report says that more than 13 people may have taken their own lives due to the scandal.

Families have said that six sub-postmasters and seven people who were not sub-postmasters killed themselves, after Horizon showed "illusory" shortfalls in branch accounts.

Apart from this, at least 59 people told the inquiry they had contemplated suicide at various points, of whom 10 attempted to take their own lives.

One sub-postmaster told the inquiry: "The mental stress was so great for me that I had a mental breakdown and turned to alcohol as I sunk further into depression. I attempted suicide on several occasions and was admitted to mental health institutions twice."

In the report, inquiry chair Sir Wyn Williams described the impact on those affected as "disastrous", and said it was not easy to "exaggerate the trauma" that people went through being investigated and prosecuted.

Many sub-postmasters gave evidence of psychiatric and psychological problems that have "dogged them" and are still ongoing.

• If you have been affected by the issues in this story the BBC Action Line features a list of organisations which are ready to provide support and advice.

2. Post Office knew its IT system had errors

A recurring question throughout the inquiry was: how much did the Post Office know that the Horizon data it was using to prosecute people was not accurate?

Sir Wyn is very robust in his initial response and says there will be more on this in the next volume of the report.

He says that senior and not so senior people in the Post Office "knew, or at the very least should have known, that legacy Horizon was capable of error" – legacy Horizon was the version in use until 2010.

"Yet, for all practical purposes, throughout the lifetime of legacy Horizon, the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate."

After 2010, the next version of Horizon also contained "bugs, errors and defects".

Sir Wyn says: "I am satisfied that a number of employees of Fujitsu and the Post Office knew that this was so."

3. Post Office and Fujitsu behaved unacceptably

The report says many hundreds of people were wrongly convicted of criminal offences, and thousands were held responsible for losses that were illusory.

Just a reminder of the numbers: about 1,000 people were prosecuted, and only between 50 and 60 were not convicted.

Thousands of employees were suspended, and many later had their contracts terminated.

These people were victims of "wholly unacceptable behaviour" by individuals employed or associated with the Post Office and Fujitsu, and from time to time by the organisations themselves, Sir Wyn says.

4. Post Office was too adversarial on compensation

There have been a number of settlements and compensation schemes for sub-postmasters. While some have been satisfied by the level of compensation available, many who had more complex claims were not.

Sir Wyn says three of the compensation schemes have been "bedevilled with unjustifiable delays" and redress has not been delivered promptly.

Moreover, with difficult and substantial claims, "on too many occasions" the Post Office and its legal advisers had been "unnecessarily adversarial" in making initial offers for compensation, driving down the level of eventual financial settlements.

Sir Wyn recommends three things when it comes to compensation:

• A mechanism to deliver redress "to persons who have been wronged by public bodies", should be established

• Free legal advice should be extended to claimants on one of the schemes – the Horizon Shortfall Scheme.

• Close family members of people who have "been most adversely affected by Horizon" should be compensated

Sir Wyn estimates that there are currently 10,000 eligible claimants in three compensation schemes, and that number is likely to rise by at least hundreds, if not more.

5. Post Office and Fujitsu told to meet victims

In addition, by 31 October this year the report says the government, Fujitsu and the Post Office should publish a report on a programme for restorative justice.

This is where people who have caused harm should be brought together with people who have suffered it "so they can discuss the impact, take responsibility, and work collaboratively to make amends".

Sir Wyn is calling on the government to consider his recommendations without delay.

US President Donald Trump has said he thinks talks to end the war in Gaza have been "going along very well", as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC.

Trump also expressed confidence that Hamas was willing to end the 21-month conflict. "They want to meet and they want to have that ceasefire," he said in unexpected remarks to reporters at the White House.

Both leaders were asked about potential plans to relocate Palestinians, with Trump saying he has co-operation from countries neighbouring Israel.

The meeting came after the latest rounds of indirect ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas in Qatar ended without a breakthrough, though negotiations were expected to continue this week.

In Monday's remarks, Trump was asked by a journalist what was preventing a peace deal in Gaza, and he said: "I don't think there is a hold-up. I think things are going along very well."

Netanyahu, meanwhile, said he was working with the US on finding countries that will "give Palestinians a better future".

The Palestinian presidency has previously rejected plans to relocate Palestinians, which it pointed out would violate international law.

Netanyahu also appeared to play down prospects of full Palestinian statehood, saying that Israel will "always" keep security control over the Gaza Strip.

"Now, people will say it's not a complete state, it's not a state. We don't care," Netanyahu said.

At the meeting, the Israeli PM also said he had nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, reportedly a long-held goal of the US president.

"He's forging peace as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other," Netanyahu said as he presented Trump with a letter he sent to the prize committee.

Trump has previously said he would be "very firm" with the Israeli PM about ending the war and indicated that "we'll have a deal" this week.

The White House initially said it would not make the meeting between the two leaders open to media, with officials describing it as a private dinner during which Trump would prioritise the push for an end to the war and the return of all hostages.

Keeping the meeting closed to journalists would have been unusual for a president who likes to platform his positions with foreign leaders in front of the world's press.

The US-backed ceasefire proposal would reportedly see Hamas release 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in five stages during a 60-day truce.

Israel would be required to release an unknown number of Palestinian prisoners and withdraw from parts of Gaza, where it now controls about two-thirds of the territory.

Obstacles to a deal remain significant.

The main outstanding issue relates to aid, as Hamas insists on ending the work of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, while the Israeli delegation refuses to discuss the issue, saying they are not authorised to discuss it.

During his visit, Netanyahu met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.

As Netanyahu's armoured limousine travelled to the White House, dozens of protesters gathered at security gates, waving Palestinian flags and shouting calls for the Israeli's PM's arrest.

Netanyahu, along with his former defence minister Yoav Gallant and a Hamas commander Mohammed Deif, were made subjects of an arrest warrant in November from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu has rejected the allegations, calling the warrants antisemitic, while the Trump administration has imposed sanctions on four ICC judges for what it called "baseless actions targeting America or our close ally, Israel".

The latest round of negotiations on the war in Gaza began on Sunday in Doha, with representatives seated in different rooms in the same building.

A second session was held on Monday and ended without a breakthrough, a Palestinian official familiar with the negotiations told AFP.

Witkoff was due to join the talks in Doha later this week in an effort to get a ceasefire over the line as the Gaza conflict nears its 22nd month.

Speaking to the BBC, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee declined to say whether Trump would give a written guarantee that a proposed 60-day ceasefire would be extended, so long as negotiations continue.

"I simply don't know," Huckabee said.

This is one of Hamas's key demands and a stumbling block in the current negotiations.

When asked whether he believes Trump can achieve a breakthrough with the Israeli leader, Huckabee said: "I'm not a prophet. I cannot predict the future, so I won't try to tell you what will happen."

Netanyahu is visiting the White House for the third time since Trump returned to power nearly six months ago.

But the leaders are meeting for the first time since the US joined Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and then brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.

There is a strong sense that the recent 12-day war has created more favourable circumstances to end the Gaza war.

Witkoff said at Monday's dinner that a US meeting with Iran would take place in the next week or so. Trump also said he would like to lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic at some point.

The US president has expressed increasing concern over the conflict in Gaza in recent weeks and believes there is a "good chance" of reaching a ceasefire.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said it was Trump's "utmost priority" to end the war in Gaza and that he wanted Hamas to agree to the 60-day deal "right now".

Resident doctors in England have once again voted in favour of strike action, in the latest chapter in a long-running pay dispute.

The doctors, previously known as junior doctors, were awarded a 5.4% pay rise for this financial year, following a 22% increase over the previous two years.

But the British Medical Association says wages are still around 20% lower in real terms than in 2008 and are demanding "pay restoration".

Nearly 48,000 staff could now take part in new walkouts, although the union said it would seek fresh talks with the government before announcing strike days.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.

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Norman Tebbit, who served as a cabinet minister in Margaret Thatcher's government, has died aged 94.

Throughout the 1980s he worked as the chairman of the Conservative Party and led departments including trade and industry and employment.

A loyal ally of Thatcher, Lord Tebbit backed her agenda, bringing in laws designed to curb union power - including making them liable for damages if they did illegal acts.

In 1984, he and his wife were injured in the IRA bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Tory Party's annual conference.

He suffered a broken shoulder blade, fractured vertebrae and a cracked collarbone, while his wife, Margaret, was left permanently disabled by the bomb.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Lord Tebbit's son William said: "At 11.15pm on 7 July 2025 Lord Tebbit died peacefully at home aged 94.

"His family ask that their privacy is respected at this time and a further statement regarding funeral arrangements will be made in due course."

Lord Tebbit served as an MP from 1970 until 1992, representing Epping for the first four years and Chingford from 1974 to 1992.

In 1981, he made a famous speech to the Conservative Party conference in which he criticised riots over unemployment, telling the audience that in the 1930s his father had not rioted but had "got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it".

In 1990, he provoked anger when he posed a 'cricket test' to help determine whether a person was truly British.

"A large proportion of Britain's Asian population fail to pass the cricket test," he said.

"Which side do they cheer for? It's an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?"

Warmer from midweek

When will the heatwave end?

Will the rest of the summer be hot?

Hamas used sexual violence as "part of a deliberate genocidal strategy" during the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, an all-women group of Israeli legal and gender experts allege in a new report calling for justice.

The Dinah Project says the report is based on a review of evidence including first-hand testimony from a survivor of an attempted rape and 15 former hostages held in Gaza, as well as accounts from witnesses to sexual assaults.

It lays out what the group describes as "a legal blueprint for prosecuting these crimes, even when direct attribution to individual perpetrators is impossible".

Hamas has denied its forces committed sexual violence against women or mistreated female hostages.

However, a UN mission concluded in March 2024 that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attack in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape, and that there was "convincing information" that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualised torture.

And before they were assassinated by Israel, three top Hamas leaders were also accused by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor of the crimes against humanity of rape and other forms of sexual violence, in addition to murder, extermination and torture.

On 7 October, hundreds of members of Hamas and allied Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel, where they killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 57,500 people have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of rape and sexual violence

The Dinah Project was launched after 7 October to pursue justice for victims of sexual violence. It was founded by legal scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddar, lawyer and former chief military prosecutor Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, and former judge and deputy attorney general Nava Ben-Or.

It says that the report, which was published on Tuesday, "establishes that Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon, as part of a genocidal scheme and with the goal of terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society".

It also "creates a pathway to justice for victims of the 7 October attack and potentially for victims in other conflict zones", according to the group.

The authors say they reviewed a large volume of sources, ranging from social media posts to recorded testimony, as well as forensic evidence and visual and audio evidence.

The report - which does not identify the victims but cites reports that do name some of them - says a female survivor of the attack on the Nova music festival on 7 October told members of the Dinah Project that she was subjected to an attempted rape and sexual assault.

According to the report, one of the 15 former hostages said she was forced to perform a sexual act, which was preceded by sexual abuse and verbal and physical sexual harassment. She also said she endured forced nudity - an experience which was reported by six other hostages as well.

Almost all of the hostages reported verbal and some physical harassment, including "unwanted physical contact in private parts", the report says, while six said they also faced threats of forced marriage.

Two men among the hostages said they were subjected to forced nudity and physical abuse when naked, with one also recounting the shaving of all his body hair, according to the report.

The Dinah Project says the accounts from people who saw or heard incidents of sexual violence showed that such crimes were "widespread and systematic" on 7 October.

According to the report, five witnesses reported at least four separate cases of gang rape; seven reported at least eight other separate cases of rape or severe sexual assaults, some of them in captivity; five reported at least three separate cases of sexual assaults, some in captivity; and three reported three separate cases of mutilation.

Nine of those cases related to the Nova music festival, two to the Nahal Oz military base, one to the Route 232 road, and four to incidents occurring in captivity in Gaza, the report says.

Twenty-seven first responders meanwhile described dozens of cases which showed "clear signs of sexual violence across six locations", the report says - the Nova festival, Route 232, and the kibbutzim of Be'eri, Alumim, Nahal Oz and Re'im.

The report also says that "most victims were permanently silenced", because they were either killed on 7 October or left too traumatised to talk.

In response, the authors provide what they describe as the "first global legal blueprint explaining how to prosecute sexual violence as a weapon of war - even when evidence is messy, survivors are gone, and individual perpetrators can't be tied to individual acts".

That includes an evidentiary framework to categorise information based on its proximity to incidents and its evidentiary value, and a legal framework for establishing criminal responsibility for atrocities committed during mass attacks, even when an individual did not personally commit each specific act or were not aware of its commission by someone else.

The report concludes by saying that justice is "essential not only for individual victims but for affirming broader principles: that sexual violence in conflict is a serious violation of international law, that perpetrators will be held accountable, and that the international community will not allow such crimes to be committed with impunity".

'She's got something about her'

'There's fire in the belly'

Hamas used sexual violence as "part of a deliberate genocidal strategy" during the 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, an all-women group of Israeli legal and gender experts allege in a new report calling for justice.

The Dinah Project says the report is based on a review of evidence including first-hand testimony from a survivor of an attempted rape and 15 former hostages held in Gaza, as well as accounts from witnesses to sexual assaults.

It lays out what the group describes as "a legal blueprint for prosecuting these crimes, even when direct attribution to individual perpetrators is impossible".

Hamas has denied its forces committed sexual violence against women or mistreated female hostages.

However, a UN mission concluded in March 2024 that there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attack in multiple locations, including rape and gang rape, and that there was "convincing information" that hostages had been subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualised torture.

And before they were assassinated by Israel, three top Hamas leaders were also accused by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor of the crimes against humanity of rape and other forms of sexual violence, in addition to murder, extermination and torture.

On 7 October, hundreds of members of Hamas and allied Palestinian armed groups attacked southern Israel, where they killed about 1,200 people and took 251 others hostage.

Israel responded by launching a military campaign in Gaza, during which more than 57,500 people have been killed, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.

Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of rape and sexual violence

The Dinah Project was launched after 7 October to pursue justice for victims of sexual violence. It was founded by legal scholar Ruth Halperin-Kaddar, lawyer and former chief military prosecutor Sharon Zagagi-Pinhas, and former judge and deputy attorney general Nava Ben-Or.

It says that the report, which was published on Tuesday, "establishes that Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon, as part of a genocidal scheme and with the goal of terrorizing and dehumanizing Israeli society".

It also "creates a pathway to justice for victims of the 7 October attack and potentially for victims in other conflict zones", according to the group.

The authors say they reviewed a large volume of sources, ranging from social media posts to recorded testimony, as well as forensic evidence and visual and audio evidence.

The report - which does not identify the victims but cites reports that do name some of them - says a female survivor of the attack on the Nova music festival on 7 October told members of the Dinah Project that she was subjected to an attempted rape and sexual assault.

According to the report, one of the 15 former hostages said she was forced to perform a sexual act, which was preceded by sexual abuse and verbal and physical sexual harassment. She also said she endured forced nudity - an experience which was reported by six other hostages as well.

Almost all of the hostages reported verbal and some physical harassment, including "unwanted physical contact in private parts", the report says, while six said they also faced threats of forced marriage.

Two men among the hostages said they were subjected to forced nudity and physical abuse when naked, with one also recounting the shaving of all his body hair, according to the report.

The Dinah Project says the accounts from people who saw or heard incidents of sexual violence showed that such crimes were "widespread and systematic" on 7 October.

According to the report, five witnesses reported at least four separate cases of gang rape; seven reported at least eight other separate cases of rape or severe sexual assaults, some of them in captivity; five reported at least three separate cases of sexual assaults, some in captivity; and three reported three separate cases of mutilation.

Nine of those cases related to the Nova music festival, two to the Nahal Oz military base, one to the Route 232 road, and four to incidents occurring in captivity in Gaza, the report says.

Twenty-seven first responders meanwhile described dozens of cases which showed "clear signs of sexual violence across six locations", the report says - the Nova festival, Route 232, and the kibbutzim of Be'eri, Alumim, Nahal Oz and Re'im.

The report also says that "most victims were permanently silenced", because they were either killed on 7 October or left too traumatised to talk.

In response, the authors provide what they describe as the "first global legal blueprint explaining how to prosecute sexual violence as a weapon of war - even when evidence is messy, survivors are gone, and individual perpetrators can't be tied to individual acts".

That includes an evidentiary framework to categorise information based on its proximity to incidents and its evidentiary value, and a legal framework for establishing criminal responsibility for atrocities committed during mass attacks, even when an individual did not personally commit each specific act or were not aware of its commission by someone else.

The report concludes by saying that justice is "essential not only for individual victims but for affirming broader principles: that sexual violence in conflict is a serious violation of international law, that perpetrators will be held accountable, and that the international community will not allow such crimes to be committed with impunity".