On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants broke through Israel’s border and attacked communities in southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking roughly 250 hostages. Most of those killed were civilians. Yet the years since Oct. 7 have highlighted another phenomenon: celebrities increasingly inserting themselves into one of the world’s most complicated conflicts. 

The attack’s brutality is well documented. A U.N. mission later found reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, occurred at several locations during the Oct. 7 attacks.