The 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report, chaired by Lord Andrew Roberts, has now been published. It provides a meticulously researched, forensic account of the atrocities committed against Israel by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Compiled by the UK-Israel All Party Parliamentary Group, this report is an essential document, recording in stark detail the murder, torture, and sexual violence inflicted upon innocent civilians. It ensures that this horror is preserved in the historical record, beyond the reach of those who would seek to distort or deny it.
That such a report is necessary at all speaks to the disturbing times we live in. The idea that a massacre of nearly 1,200 people, the largest slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, might require Britain’s parliament to painstakingly document it to secure belief is obscene. And yet, this is the world in which we find ourselves. A world where Jewish suffering is questioned, where atrocities against Israelis are met not with immediate, unqualified horror but with hedging, justification, or outright denial. That is why the work of Lord Roberts and his parliamentary colleagues is so crucial. It is not simply about recording history; it is about ensuring that history cannot be rewritten by those with a vested interest in its erasure.
It is essential reading for all of us
Andrew Roberts is among Britain’s most distinguished historians, known for his scholarship on Churchill, Napoleon, and the second world war. His biography Churchill: Walking with Destiny stands as a masterwork of historical analysis, praised for its depth and precision. His Napoleon the Great similarly strips away myth to present an unvarnished portrait of one of history’s most complex figures.
But Roberts’ role is not only as a chronicler of the past; it is as a guardian of truth in the present. He understands that historical memory is not merely about what happened – it is about what societies are willing to accept as fact. And in an era where atrocity denial spreads faster than the evidence itself, his commitment to ensuring the 7 October Report is published, studied, and widely disseminated is an act of immense moral importance.
The report establishes, with irrefutable detail, the full scale of the attack. It confirms that Hamas’ invasion of southern Israel was not an impulsive act of war but the result of years of meticulous planning. As early as 2018, Palestinian armed groups had begun coordinating through the so-called ‘Joint Room for Palestinian Resistance Factions’, pooling resources and strategy for an eventual large-scale assault. On the morning of 7 October, that plan was executed with terrifying efficiency. Over 7,000 attackers breached Israel’s defences at 119 different points along the border. It was a disciplined, multi-pronged offensive by land, sea, and air. Armed terrorists used drones to disable Israel’s surveillance systems, paragliders to bypass security barriers, and specialist explosive charges designed to breach the doors of Israeli safe rooms where civilians hid in terror.
What followed was mass slaughter. The report details the full horror of what Hamas inflicted: the massacre of 375 people at the Nova music festival, where attackers hunted down fleeing civilians, throwing grenades into bomb shelters and shooting those who attempted to escape in their cars. The deliberate targeting of families in their homes, the use of rape as a weapon of war, the desecration of bodies. The youngest victim was newborn Naama Abu Rashed, shot while still in her mother’s womb. She died 14 hours later, despite doctors’ desperate attempts to save her. The oldest, 92-year-old Holocaust survivor Moshe Ridler, was murdered when Hamas terrorists fired a rocket-propelled grenade into his safe room.
The report presents harrowing evidence of sexual violence, corroborating the findings of Pramila Patten, the UN’s special representative on the crime. It confirms that Hamas terrorists gang-raped women before executing them, that bodies of female victims were found stripped, bound, and mutilated. It methodically dismantles Hamas’ denials, exposing their strategy of lying even in the face of video evidence – much of it filmed by the perpetrators themselves. The report documents the methodical nature of the attacks, the manuals found on captured Hamas fighters instructing them on how to take hostages, the maps showing pre-planned routes for looting and destruction.
This report is now a permanent parliamentary record, introduced to ensure that the events of 7 October cannot be distorted by history’s revisionists. The fact that such a document is necessary here in the UK – that Jewish suffering must be recorded in exhaustive, forensic detail to be accepted – reveals something deeply unsettling about the moral landscape of our time. But that is why this publication matters so much. It is not just about documenting a single act of terror; it is about refusing to allow its memory to be tarnished by those who would deny, justify, or diminish it.
The existence of this report is a testament to the integrity of those in Britain, like Lord Roberts, who still believe in objective truth. In an era where too many remain silent or complicit in the rewriting of history, his leadership in this endeavour is an act of moral courage. It is essential reading for all of us – it should be sent to schools and libraries, synagogues, churches and mosques, TV stations and newspapers, everywhere. The clear, factual knowledge it contains is vital, chilling and urgent. His work will ensure that when future generations look back on 7 October 2023, they will not be forced to wade through conspiracy and distortion to find out what happened. They will see the truth laid bare, in black and white, undeniable.
And that matters. Because history is not owned by those who shout the loudest as they march down Oxford Street or past London synagogues on a Shabbat morning, nor by those who seek to bury the past in propaganda and catchy slogans projected onto our Parliamentary buildings. It belongs to those who tell the truth.
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