Israeli Amit Soussana, 40, freed from Hamas captivity in November, said in an interview with the newspaper New York Times, this Tuesday (26), that she was abused and sexually attacked by her guard during the period she was imprisoned in Gaza.
The woman reported that she was kept alone, chained and in the dark, in a kind of children’s room, where she was raped by her Hamas captor, whose name she said was Muhammad.
Soussana said she first suffered sexual violence in late October, when he attacked her while she was briefly let out to use the bathroom. “He came towards me and pointed the gun at my forehead. Afterwards, he sat me on the edge of the bathtub and I resisted. And he kept punching me and putting the gun in my face. Then, he dragged me to the room”, said the victim in strong reports.
She said she was forced to take off her towel while Muhammad groped her, before being taken at gunpoint back to her bedroom, where the perpetrator forced her to “commit a sexual act on him.”
The American newspaper highlighted that the former captive’s report is consistent with other statements she provided to the health professionals who treated her immediately after her release. Julia Barda, the social worker who spoke to Soussana that day, told the NY Times that the freed hostage “spoke immediately, fluently and in detail, not only about her sexual assault, but also about the many other trials she suffered.”
Before being freed from the hands of the terrorists, the woman was transferred to a different apartment block, where she was handed over to a man named Amir and held with four other hostages, he said. At the scene, she said her head was wrapped in a shirt by the guards, and she was then forced to sit on the floor, where they attacked her with rifle butts. Her hands were then tied and hung “like a chicken”, according to her, on a pole connecting two sofas, which caused “severe pain”.
“It was like that for about 45 minutes,” she said. “They were hitting me, laughing and kicking me, and called the other hostages to see me.” According to her report, such was the shock over what was happening that one of the hostages who saw the scenes of violence asked her if she had any final message for her family.
Earlier this month, a team of UN experts, led by the special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, released a report stating that they had “reasonable grounds” to believe that the terrorist group committed rape, sexualized torture and other abuses against Israeli women during the terrorist attacks that took place on October 7, 2023. The UN team states that it analyzed more than 5,000 photos and 50 hours of videos, in addition to interviewing 34 people, including survivors, witnesses, freed hostages and health professionals.
The crimes occurred in at least three locations initially: the music festival, road 232 and the Reim kibbutz, where the victims were subjected to rape and gang rape and then murdered or killed while being raped.
In addition, this was the first time that a freed hostage spoke publicly about sexual crimes while in captivity.
