On October 7, 2023, an orgy of slaughter and sexual violence was unleashed on Israeli civilians. It was a measured, premeditated pogrom, broadcast with grotesque pride. The world watched as terrorists streamed their atrocities across social media, turning murder and rape into a live propaganda show.
That day was not merely another episode in the long, tragic history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It was an operational and moral rupture, a mass atrocity whose reverberations continue to shatter families. The event also exposes an international discourse in which moral clarity too often gives way to equivocation.
Two years later, the consequences persist. 1,200 Israelis were murdered in the Hamas invasion. Forty-eight Israeli hostages — of whom only 20 are thought to be alive — are still being in captivity by Hamas. The beachfront Gaza Strip, which was transformed into a terror command-and-control hub, and a dispute has been distorted by selective outrage and cynical politicians.
The only just response to such barbarism must be unflinching: to rescue the hostages, hold the perpetrators and their sponsors to account, and refuse to normalize propaganda that celebrates murder and rape.
The massacre and its human toll
October 7 was not a spontaneous eruption of violence. It was the product of planning, intelligence and ruthless intent. It was an incursion coordinated with Iran. The Palestinian jihadists from Gaza invaded Israel, attacked civilian communities, tortured and murdered residents, beheaded adults and children alike, burned families alive, and used unimaginable, sadistic sexual violence as a weapon.
The scale of the atrocity -- the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust -- reaffirmed that modern terrorism is not constrained by any code of conduct. While exact casualty totals vary by source, the enduring human facts are clear: 1,200 murdered, many more thousands wounded, families shattered, and 251 people kidnapped and taken hostage -- now either dead, still held in captivity for a prolonged, brutal imprisonment, or released earlier. Forty-eight remain, of whom only 20 are believed still to be alive. The victims have been starved (here and here) and forced to dig their own graves.
Every day that these hostages remain in Hamas's hands is a moral stain on the international community that professes to protect the innocent.
Propaganda as a weapon: the social-media spectacle
Hamas turned atrocity into a spectacle. The terrorists livestreamed their violence. Footage of brutality was rapidly circulated and weaponized to terrorize populations and recruit sympathizers. This was not merely brutality; it was psychological warfare meant to shatter the Israeli public and force political and military concessions. The social-media broadcasts of sex crimes and sickening mutilations -- and the expectation that Western platforms post this content under the claim of "context" or "news" -- present a test for internet companies, Western civil liberties groups, and every democracy. Internet platform policies and human rights rhetoric have become a cover for normalizing and amplifying mass criminality.
The sponsors and facilitators: Iran, Qatar, and the regional axis
Hamas does not operate in a political vacuum. For years Iran has been one of the two principal state sponsors of Hamas, providing funding, transfers of weapons, training, and plans for the destruction not only of Israel but of the US (here and here).
American and Israeli estimates -- as well as numerous open-source analyses -- have documented Iran's financial and material support to Hamas, a relationship that turns Gaza into an extension of a malign regional strategy.
Qatar is the other longtime supporter of Hamas -- as well as numerous other Islamic terrorist organizations (such as here and here).
Known as "the arsonist and the firefighter," Qatar, while offering diplomatic channels, and hosting negotiators, has demonstrated tolerance for and acquiescence to Hamas political and media networks, and provided Hamas as well as countless other terror groups with financing, diplomatic cover and logistical lifelines.
Through its Al-Jazeera television empire, Qatar has promoted violent jihadist activity for Hamas and other Muslim Brotherhood-inspired terrorist groups. In addition, during the 2011 "Arab Spring," it virtually single-handedly whipped up unlimited jihadist propaganda to oust the Egyptian government.
Continuing its terrorist financing, Qatar seems to be in the process of orchestrating yet another "Arab Spring", this time to oust the current government of Egypt.
Qatar has already spent "nearly $100 billion" just the US to gain influence there, according to MSNBC.
For any future in a Gaza that actually hopes for real peace, it is crucial that Qatar be totally out of the picture.
Together, Iran's hard-power sponsorship and Qatar's enabling funding and propaganda and diplomatic posture have helped sustain Palestinian terrorist organizations that continue to threaten civilians.
Flotillas, fraud and the exposure of foreign backing
The recent Global Sumud Flotilla -- claimed by its backers to dramatize the humanitarian crisis in Gaza -- has exposed a different truth: terrorist-linked networks are active within this ostensibly humanitarian campaign.
Israeli authorities report that documents recovered in Gaza demonstrate direct Hamas involvement in organizing and financing elements of this flotilla effort -- a finding that demonstrates how terror groups exploit humanitarian cover for political and operational ends. The flotilla produced an international outcry and drew sympathetic headlines, while behind the cameras, a web of coordination, money flows, and strategic messaging advanced Hamas's objectives. This combination -- of staged humanitarian pretenses fronting for violent networks -- is the new hybrid threat of our age.
Global hypocrisy: human rights actors, selective outrage and moral inversion
The Global Sumud Flotilla incident also highlights a deeper problem: selective outrage in which states and NGOs deploy the language of human rights in an unequal way. Prominent human rights organizations and many Western politicians have publicly condemned Israel's interception of flotilla vessels. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Article 19 and others decried the boarding as illegal or "disproportionate." Yet the same organizations have often been muted, equivocal or even apologetic about the reality of Hamas's mass atrocities, hostage-taking, and use of civilians as human shields. This moral inversion -- condemning the interdiction of propaganda activist ships that have confirmed links to a terrorist organization, while underplaying or "relativizing" the premeditated mass-murder of civilians and ongoing hostage abuse -- erodes credibility and enables a dangerous narrative that tries to confuse the public about who is the perpetrator and who is the victim -- inversions that, unfortunately, sometimes succeed.
Human rights advocacy might at least try to be applied equally: condemn both alleged human rights abuses by state actors and the deliberate targeting of civilians by non-state terror groups.
Pakistan's recent posture and a troubling record
Pakistan's recent statements, condemning Israel for intercepting the Global Sumud Flotilla, add another uncomfortable layer. Islamabad's strong denunciation of Israel's actions -- and the laughable characterization of detained activists as "innocent" humanitarian workers --emerges against a long, well-documented history in which Pakistani institutions and networks have facilitated Islamist terrorism across South Asia and beyond.
From training and logistics to ideological propagation, elements within Pakistan have supported groups that share tactics and goals with Hamas and other jihadist actors. This history should immediately make Islamabad's moralizing ring hollow and invite scrutiny. When a state that, in many documented instances, has been a source of support for terrorist organizations, starts emitting moral condemnations of counterterror operations, the international community might press for credible evidence to see if its positions are principled rather than transactional and hypocritical.
What justice requires: accountability
The October 7 attackers and their chain of command need to be exposed, prosecuted and isolated. The states and institutions that have been providing funding, safe haven or diplomatic cover to terror groups need to be sanctioned and brought to account. Platforms that allow the distribution of atrocity footage without context need to be held to upgraded standards. International law and human rights norms demand an honest, equal application: condemn hostage-taking and sexual violence, investigate and prosecute war crimes, and refuse to let political patronage create impunity.
Crucially, the world must prioritize the immediate safe return of the remaining hostages. Nothing else should outrank this moral imperative.
Two years after October 7, the international conversation has been poisoned by a fatal mixture of cynicism, selective outrage and geopolitical calculation. Some governments and institutions, particularly in the West -- such as France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway, Portugal, Ireland and Spain -- prefer moral acrobatics. These countries issue statements that comfort domestic electoral constituencies while failing to defend universal human values. There can be no neutrality in the face of mass murder, hostage-taking and rape. To equivocate is to enable. Democracies and civil-society actors should strip terrorists from their enablers, sanctuaries and financiers. Humanitarian language should not be weaponized to hide terrorism. Above all, every possible diplomatic, legal and operational effort must be marshaled to free the hostages from captivity in Gaza and prevent another attack like that of October 7.
For the hostage families still waiting, for the communities still grieving, and for the future of a rules-based international order, the only acceptable response to the October 7 atrocity is the application of justice, the dismantling of the terrorist networks that made it possible, and the refusal to tolerate any narrative that excuses or sanitizes savage, unprovoked cruelty.
Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is an award-winning journalist, writer, and editor of the newspaper Blitz. He specializes in counterterrorism and regional geopolitics. Follow him on X: @Salah_Shoaib
