TRIGGER WARNING: The following story may be distressing to some readers as it tackles topics such as sexual abuse, sexual assault, and rape.
Amit Soussana, a 40-year-old Israeli lawyer whom Hamas took hostage on Oct. 7, revealed in a bombshell report that the Palestinian militant group sexually assaulted her during her 55-day captivity.
Soussana detailed to the New York Times that the abuse began just days after Hamas took her prisoner.
Her captor had unchained her from the bed for what she thought was to allow her to take a bath.
But then, things took a violent turn.
A Hamas fighter who called himself Muhammad - described as a chubby, balding man of average height with a wide nose - made his first sexual advance on Soussana around Oct. 24, when he returned to the toilet with a pistol in hand.
"He came towards me and shoved the gun at my forehead," she told the Times, adding that she was forced to remove her towel.
Afterward, Muhammad groped her, sat her on the edge of the bathtub, and hit her again before dragging her back to a bedroom and forcing her to have sexual intercourse.
Muhammad later showed remorse, begging her not to "tell Israel" of the deed.
She even detailed how Muhammad was specifically interested in when her menstrual period would end.
"Every day, he would ask: 'Did you get your period? Did you get your period? When you get your period, when it will be over, you will wash, you will take a shower and you will wash your clothes,'" Soussana recalled.
The captor also made several non-sexual advances in an attempt to reconcile for the act, to which she refused.
"You can't stand looking at him - but you have to: He's the one who's protecting you, he's your guard," Soussana said. "You're there with him and you know that every moment it can happen again. You're completely dependent on him."
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Over the span of 55 days, Soussana recalled to the Times how she was transferred from location to location inside Gaza until she eventually reunited with a few hostages when she was brought into a Hamas tunnel hideout. There, she received a renewed beating from several Hamas captors.
Soussana was finally released on Nov. 30 alongside 105 other hostages during a seven-day truce.
She reported the sexual assaults within days of her return and has remained consistent with her accounts of the abuse she suffered, officials said. She also sustained several injuries, including fractures in her right eye socket, cheek, knee, and nose and severe bruising on her knee and back.
A Hamas spokesman tried to cast doubt on Soussana's claims, stating that the level of detail in her account made it "difficult to believe the story unless it was designed by some security officers."
"For us, the human body, and especially that of the woman, is sacred," spokesman Basem Naim told the Times in a statement, emphasizing Hamas's religious beliefs "forbade any mistreatment of any human being, regardless of his sex, religion or ethnicity."
While Soussana was the first hostage to recount such horrifying abuse publicly, a United Nations report from earlier this month indicated that there was "clear and convincing information" that some hostages suffered sexual violence.
