A SURVIVOR of a brutal kidnapping by Hamas has revealed she was stored in chains, tortured, and sexually assaulted for 55 days.
Amit Soussana, 40, was taken hostage in the course of the October 7 massacre and chained up for 3 weeks in a Gaza dwelling.
The brave survivor informed The Times of how she battled by means of weeks of terror the place she feared she would die.
After her seize, she was taken to a home the place she was guarded by two males and tied up by an iron chain to bars on a window for 3 weeks.
The Israeli lawyer says she was sexually abused “beneath the specter of a gun” by one in every of her captors after she took a bathe.
She writes: “He stood there with the gun. The man who used to smile and snort now seemed like a monster, respiration closely with a menacing look that was meant to scare me, possessed.
“I obtained up, took the small towel and coated myself. He came visiting with the gun to my head, making an attempt to tear the towel away, however I wouldn’t let him.
“He punched me and I nonetheless wouldn’t let him.”
Amit then described how the guard, Mohammad, took her right into a kids’s room in the home the place he compelled her to carry out a sexual act.
Her captors then continued to humiliate her for days on finish, forcing Amit to dress quick and likewise clear for his or her amusement.
In a single documentary, Screams Earlier than Silence, Amit has beforehand revealed how she was terrified she would paraded by means of the streets when she was captured.
Amit mentioned: “There have been ten males round me.
“The sensation that they are taking me like I am some form of object, I could not stand it. My intuition was simply to struggle, and to do what I can.
“I used to be actually scared that they had been going to rape me there, and that they had been going to tug me by means of Gaza streets and parade my physique round.
“I feared that greater than being killed.”
However, in November, lower than two months after she had been kidnapped, Amit was launched by the terrorists throughout a ceasefire.
She mentioned she was given an hour by one guard to organize for going again to Israel.
Hamas spokesman Basem Naim has denied any such allegations of sexual assault going down in direction of prisoners.
In an announcement to the New York Instances, he mentioned it was “tough to consider” Amit’s account of sexual abuse, including that “for us, the human physique, and particularly that of the lady, is sacred”.
The terrorist group has repeatedly denied that its members dedicated acts of sexual abuse in direction of prisoners or victims during the October 7 attacks.
However a United Nations (UN) report launched earlier month said there may be “clear and convincing info” that some hostages had suffered sexual violence.
The report provides that there are “reasonable grounds” that some individuals had been sexually assaulted in the course of the raid.
Who’re Hamas?
HAMAS is an Islamist militant group based in 1987 in the course of the first Palestinian Intifada or rebellion in opposition to Israel.
The fear organisation is a Palestinian militant motion that additionally serves as one of many territories’ two main political events.
Over time, Hamas has carried out taking pictures, bombing, and rocket assaults in Israel and the 2 area’s armies have fought in Gaza in a number of cross-border because the group seized management of Gaza in 2007.
However the group drew worldwide consideration once they commited a set of horror assaults on October 7, 2023.
They launched surprise land, air, and sea attacks on Israel, killing over a whole bunch of Israelis and leaving hundreds extra injured.
Since then the brutal warfare has continued and hundreds have died on either side of the preventing.
Hamas as a complete, or in some circumstances its army wing, is designated a terrorist group by Israel, the US, the EU, and the UK, in addition to different powers.