A Hanukkiyah, a candlestick used during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, stands on the remains of a burnt windowsill, following a deadly infiltration by Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip, in Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, Oct. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

More than two and a half years after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, not one of the terrorists detained for taking part in the attack has been brought to trial, according to a new report by Israel’s State Comptroller, who warned that the delay is harming deterrence and denying justice to the victims and their families.

“Bringing justice to the Hamas terrorists who committed crimes during the October 7 terror attack is of utmost importance, from a legal, moral and public perspective,” outgoing State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman said.

The report faulted the state for failing to prepare for the mass detention of security prisoners after Oct. 7, as Israel’s prisons absorbed thousands of Palestinians arrested during the war. According to the report, the number of security prisoners held by Israel jumped by about 92 percent during the war, from 5,200 to roughly 10,000, worsening an already severe shortage of prison space. By October 2025, Israel’s total prison population had reached 23,400.

The overcrowding strained the Israel Prison Service, increased the burden and risk for prison staff, and hampered the Shin Bet’s ability to carry out arrests and interrogations, the report found. Englman also said the lack of space contributed to the release of 19 Gaza detainees who had been classified as a danger to national security, including Shifa Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya.

Abu Salmiya’s release, while Israeli hostages were still being held in Gaza, caused “deep cognitive damage” in Israel and became a propaganda tool for Hamas, the report said. Englman also criticized the fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not consulted before the release and was informed only after the fact, saying the episode should be viewed “gravely.”

But Englman singled out the absence of prosecutions for the Oct. 7 terrorists as a separate failure, saying the drawn-out legal process has weakened the deterrent effect of trials and delayed justice for the victims of the massacre and their families.

The findings come despite recent efforts to create a legal framework for the prosecutions. In May, lawmakers approved a special military tribunal composed of 15 judges for Oct. 7 cases, hoping to break a deadlock that has left roughly 300 captured terrorists in legal limbo.

Yet even supporters of the legislation caution against viewing the delay as a simple bureaucratic failure.

Yifa Segal, an international law expert who participated in Knesset discussions surrounding the framework, said the scale of the Oct. 7 atrocities created evidentiary challenges unlike those in ordinary terrorism cases.

“There has never been anything this complex legally, in any terror attack in history,” Segal told The Algemeiner.

More than 3,000 terrorists from Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups crossed into Israel on Oct. 7, carrying out murders, rapes, kidnappings, and looting across hundreds of locations. By the time investigators reached many of the scenes, days had passed and evidence had been degraded, contaminated, or lost.

“The connection between a specific terrorist and a specific crime is almost impossible to prove in many of these cases,” Segal said.

In a conventional criminal trial, she explained, prosecutors would need to tie each defendant to a specific act committed against a specific victim — a standard that could be impossible to meet in many Oct. 7 cases, particularly where victims were murdered or no witnesses survived.

“In a regular criminal trial, you would have to prove that this particular Mohammad raped this particular woman,” Segal said. “She would have to testify against him. She would have to remember exactly who it was, how many terrorists assaulted her. In some of the scenes, there were no witnesses left at all.”

Trying the cases that way, Segal warned, would not only force survivors through repeated testimony and cross-examination, but could also produce the opposite of what Israel is seeking.

“It probably would have led to a great many acquittals,” she said.

The new framework is designed to allow Israel to present Oct. 7 as a coordinated atrocity rather than hundreds of disconnected criminal cases. Israel’s 1950 genocide law, passed in the aftermath of the Holocaust, is expected to be one of the statutes used in the prosecutions.

“This was an attempted genocide,” Segal said. “It shouldn’t be treated as a series of separate crimes with no connection between them.”

Under the law, the trials would be public, broadcast, and translated, both for victims and for international audiences.

“It should look like Nuremberg,” Segal said.